On August twelfth, 2008 Belize City police arrested four young men including a minor and charged them all of keeping unlicensed firearm and ammunition. The following morning, when all four were arraigned in Magistrate’s Court, the accused Shane Young, Christopher Sosa and Stephen Flowers were remanded to Hattieville while the minor was ordered to boot camp. They were initially denied bail due to the latest amendment to the Firearms Act their time behind bars was short as they were all later released on bail.
But what first appeared to an air tight case by police, fell apart rather quickly in court today. To illustrate it to you, we have to backtrack to August when the police found the gun inside an SUV the young men were in, tucked under the passenger seat and loaded with five live rounds.
Police had that evidence in a box as well as a positive ID of the accused, but none of that mattered when arresting officer Constable Branston Peters failed to properly tender the contents of the box into evidence box – he only tendered the box. Sounds technical, but the box is just a box, the contents are another matter altogether. With that, the Chief Magistrate ruled that there was no case to answer to.
So based on that technicality, Stephen Flowers, Shane Young and Christopher Sosa had their charges dropped and they all walked out of Magistrate’s Court free young men. The accused were defended by attorney’s Ellis Arnold and Richard Dickie Bradley.
