The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A WOMAN who was allegedly stabbed 17 times and almost mowed down by her estranged husband just days before Christmas will testify before court today.

Sheneka Colebrooke was walking home along Palm Beach Street with her boyfriend on December 20, 2009, when she was nearly run over by a car, the Supreme Court heard yesterday.

The driver is alleged to be Colebrooke’s estranged husband Michael Scott, a Jamaican national who lives in Miami, Florida.

The court heard Scott got out of the car, said ‘If I can’t have you, nobody can have you’, then stabbed Colebrooke and her lover, 21-year-old David Rolle, who died at the scene.

Scott, 45, denies Rolle’s murder and Colebrooke’s attempted murder.

Ms Colebrooke, who is separated from Scott and is the mother of his three children, was present in court yesterday for the trial’s start.

In the afternoon, prosecutor Darnell Dorsette told Justice Jon Isaacs that Ms Colebrooke was not feeling well but would be able to attend court today to give testimony.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor gave her opening address to the jury telling them she would prove that Michael Scott was the driver who attempted to run over the couple before exiting a car and stabbing both Colebrooke and Rolle.

Mrs Dorsette summarised what allegedly happened at around 1am on the day in question.

“On Sunday, the 20th of December 2009, the defendant had returned from Florida with the intention to make up with his estranged wife and to see his children,” she said.

“On the way to see Ms Colebrooke, he found her walking with another man on Palm Beach Street and allegedly swerved to the side to knock them down.”

Rolle pushed Ms Colebrooke out of the way and was nipped by the car that eventually turned around, the court heard. The defendant got out of the car with a knife and said: “If I can’t have you, nobody can have you!”

Rolle tried to prevent Ms Colebrooke from being stabbed as he was armed with a wheel wrench, the court heard. However, he was stabbed in the process by Scott and soon afterwards so was the estranged wife - as she tried to stop her lover being stabbed, the court heard.

Eula Marie Rolle, the dead man’s mother, told the jurors that her eldest of four children was ‘in high spirits’ the day before when she had last seen him - less than 24 hours before he died.

Asked if she recognized the deceased person in the photograph that was taken in the morgue, the mother, wiping the tears away with a tissue, identified Rolle as her son.

Scott, in the dock, appeared to wipe his eyes with a tissue at the end of the woman’s testimony.

Reserve officer George Symonette was the last witness to testify yesterday.

He told the court that he and another officer were on mobile patrol that morning when they came upon Palm Beach Street and he saw a white Toyota Corolla parked in front of a barber shop.

He apparently saw a bright-skinned male in dark colours acting in a suspicious manner with his hand, holding an object, going up and down next to what he described as a ‘lifeless body.’

He got out of the police car and began approaching the man whose movement, he said, ‘aroused my suspicion.’

“The man jumped in the vehicle and sped off,” he said.

Reservist Symonette said the two officers chased after the man and called for backup successfully cornering the vehicle on Prince Charles Drive by the BTC station.

Symonette said that he had ‘fired a single shot’ to get the man’s ‘attention’ and tried to get ‘the gentleman’ away ‘from the one who was on the ground dead.’

He told the court he had interviewed and cautioned the defendant about Rolle’s death, asking him about the blood on his shirt.

“He said the guy and his friend pulled a gun on him before and he acted in self-defence.”

Murio Ducille, defending Scott, asked the officer if there was anything in his report, reportedly filed on the same night, to indicate that Michael Scott had an object in his hand.

The officer looked through the report before answering: “It’s not there.”

“Something as important as that, you did not see it fit to put that in your report three years ago?” said Ducille.

“That was an oversight on my part,” the reservist said.

Mr Ducille asked the officer if he had been drinking before coming to court to testify?

“No sir. I don’t drink,” the officer replied.

Mr Ducille suggested that he and his colleague fired more than one gunshot at his client which prompted him to jump in his car and drive off.

The officer disagreed about the number of shots fired but agreed that Scott drove off because of the shot.

Prosecutor Dorsette asked if the person on the ground had hit Michael Scott back.

“No,” he said.

Justice Isaacs asked the officer if he and his colleague were in a marked vehicle, to which he said ‘yes.’

However, when asked if he and the officer were in or out of uniform, he said: “I can’t recall.”

“You can’t recall if you were in uniform?” said Justice Isaacs. “I can’t recall,” said the reservist.

The case continues.