A man is now a remanded prisoner on charges of having an illegal gun and ammunition after police say the items were found in his toilet tank during a search of his home.
The allegation against Jason Augustine is that on August 8, at his 464 Canvas City, Wismar, Linden home, he had in his possession a .40 Smith and Wesson firearm without a licence.
On the same day, Augustine is also alleged to have had 27 live rounds of .40 ammunition and 14 live rounds of 9mm ammunition without a licence. The young man denied the charges when they were read to him by Magistrate Ann McLennan at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
Prosecutor Gordon Mansfield said police conducted the search after receiving information.
He said the police went to Augustine’s home and conducted a search, in the presence of his father and stepmother, which uncovered the items found in the cistern of the toilet tank.
According to Mansfield, Augustine admitted under caution that the items were his and that he had paid one ounce and three pennyweights of gold for them.
Defence counsel Gordon Gilhuys refuted the prosecutor’s claims.
According to counsel, Augustine’s parents were returning home when they saw the police at their premises. He said that the lawmen asked the father to lock his dogs away as they wanted to conduct a search.
According to Gilhuys, the police then entered the house and questioned Augustine, who then went out of the house for further questioning by other ranks.
He said that at this point, some of the police took the boy’s father into the house straight to the cistern where the illegal items were found.
He argued that his client was not present during the alleged find and that at no time did he tell the police that the items belonged to him.
“He was outside with the police,” Gilhuys stressed. Counsel added that the oral confession was not freely and voluntarily made and that the entire story being peddled by the police is a fabrication.
These factors, he advanced, amounted to special reasons and requested that his client be admitted to reasonable bail.
The lawyer further said that Augustine, who works in his father’s shop, had no antecedents and had a fixed place of abode.
The prosecutor, however, objected to the accused being granted his pretrial liberty, while maintaining his account of the discovery and that Augustine’s admission was freely given.
Magistrate McLennan subsequently informed the lawyer that Augustine would be remanded to prison, while saying that the prima facie reasons which he advanced had not satisfied the court as special circumstances for consideration of bail.
The case was transferred to the Linden Magistrates’ Court for August 19.
