Andrew Jaipaul murder trial: Case against accused is “dangerous and flawed”, say defence
Andrew Jaipaul - Credit: Archant
The case against a man accused of brutally murdering an innocent painter and decorator was described as dangerous, flawed and unreliable at the Old Bailey today.
Andrew Jaipaul, 21 was stabbed multiple times with broken glass and kitchen knives in a vicious attack near a children’s playground on the Andover Estate, Holloway in June 2011 – and he died despite neighbours trying to stem the blood with towels.
The prosecution claim his murder was a revenge attack by Archway’s Busy Block gang after one of their number was stabbed in the buttocks hours earlier and have used CCTV footage to try and identify the six men and one boy in the dock.
But David Howker QC, defending Allan Kalema, said the evidence was “wrong, flawed” and “not only unreliable but dangerous”.
He added: “What we submit to you is straightforward. Whatever you might think of Mr Kalema, whatever you might feel about his class A drug dealing or about the fact he is a member of a north London gang, whatever you might suspect about his way of life – you are trying him for this crime and nothing else.
“The quality of evidence is not good enough for you to confidently convict that man of murder.”
Meanwhile Francis Fitzgibbon QC, representing another defendant Warren Brooks, said: “He [Andrew Jaipaul] died as a result of his injuries. Multiple stab wounds, 25 or more, in what is in any account a horrific and savage murder.
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“We can’t be as confident about how many people in total were involved. And most importantly we can’t be confident at all about who they were.”
He told the jury they “might have come here to a murder trial expecting to have evidence of DNA, fingerprints, shoe prints or something of that sort” and added “it’s quite striking none of that exists in this case.”
He said: “There is no evidence that he [Warren Brooks] was one of those who stabbed and kicked Mr Jaipaul on the Andover Estate, no CCTV no eye witnesses, so that’s why the prosecution has to rely on circumstantial evidence.”
Thomas McInerney, of Lennox Road, Finsbury Park; Allan Kalema, of Cardinals Way, Archway; Warren Brooks, of Ritchie Street, Islington; Jojo Mafwa, of St Margaret’s Avenue, Tottenham; Tirrell Ball-Thomas, of Colthurst Crescent, Finsbury Park; the 17-year-old from Islington and a 15-year-old from Upper Holloway all deny murder, conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and violent disorder.
The trial continues.
