By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
A MAN alleged to have sent a text message to a fastfood restaurant manager and to have seduced him for the sake of robbing him had phone records brought to court yesterday.
Simeon Bain, who chose not to be represented by counsel in his murder trial, called his defence witness, an information technician at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company.
Bain faces charges of murder, robbery, attempted robbery, housebreaking, and kidnapping in connection with the September 19, 2009, death of 21-year-old Rashad Morris.
Morris was kidnapped from the Charlotte Street branch of Burger King and taken to the Tonique Williams-Darling highway branch, where he had been the manager.
He was ordered to open the safe. After failing to do so, he was stabbed in the restaurant’s parking lot. Bain denies the charges and is defending himself.
The court has heard from his girlfriend that Bain was “liking a boy” at the branch, allegedly planned to rob him and had gone to BaTelCo to buy a cellphone chip to text Rashad Morris – whom she also knew as “Shanti” – under the name of “Dwayne”.
The witness told the court she was at the apartment when Bain pulled up with Morris and that she saw the two drive off some time later.
Bain was wearing a black coloured jean jacket, black jeans, a beige shirt and tennis shoes, the witness said, adding that he also had on beige gloves and a tam.
Bain later returned to the apartment and told her that he had stabbed Rashad, she told the court.
In his defence, Bain said that on the day in question he reported his car stolen to the police and on December 31, 2009, he claims he was called into the Central Detective Unit where he was ‘beaten’ into confessing to the murder.
Bain also requested of the court, before yesterday’s proceedings, that access to BaTelCo phone records were important to his defence. Justice Indra Charles told him the court would do what it could considering his circumstances.
Yesterday, the phone records taken from Bain’s telephone numbers 456 -9764 and 535-7092, according to the technician, showed no communication or transactions between the numbers registered in Bain’s name with the 525-1561 number registered to Rashad Morris.
The records did not include text messages for the month of September 2009 as it was revealed that BTC’s system at the time dumped the messages from the system after a certain period of time.
Under cross-examination by prosecutor Darnell Dorsett, it was revealed that a third number, allegedly used by the accused under the name “Dwayne”, had a number of communications with Morris’s number that month.
When asked by the jury if BTC would be able to identify the holder of the prepaid number, the technician answered said there was no mandatory policy that prepaid numbers be assigned in their system.
He said anyone could purchase a prepaid SIM card from either BTC or retail vendors but there was no requirement for the buyer to put in that information.
The trial resumes today.
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