THE murder trial of 23-year-old Mohinder Singh was postponed in the Kingston Home Circuit Court on Wednesday as the police truck that was to transport him from a Spanish Town lock-up had broken down.

Justice Kay Beckford, the presiding judge, obviously unhappy with the stalled trial, said such an incident would never have occurred some years ago. "We need to get back to the stage where people have a sense of purpose in their duties," she told the court.

Beckford apologised to the jurors for the postponement and promised that there would be cases for them to sit on come next Monday "even if we have to manufacture something for you".

Singh is accused of shooting to death Rayan Dacres on June 26, 2003 at West Avenue in the Greenwich Town area of Kingston. Dacres, 19, was reportedly murdered because he had witnessed a crime allegedly committed by the accused and another man.

Singh and another man allegedly shot Dacres, who ran and collapsed in front of a shop his mother Valerie Walker operated in the area.

Shortly after the 50-year-old Walker came outside the shop where her son lay bleeding, the men allegedly came and pumped several more shots into Dacres then walked away.

Walker reported to the police what she had witnessed and shortly thereafter started receiving death threats, and was later gunned down. Her gunshot-riddled body was found in a car in Greenwich Town on September 25, 2004.

Singh, arrested on July 4 last year, is now scheduled for trial on March 19.

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