10 Charges For Prison Escapee

Former prison escapee, Christopher “Monster” Selby appeared in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates Court today on 10 charges, includ­ing the mur­der of PC Sherman Maynard. Selby, 30, is the only sur­viv­ing mem­ber of a trio of prison escapees who broke out of the Port-of-Spain Prison on July 24. He appeared before Magistrate Marcia Ayers Caesar in the 8^th Magistrate Court. The ten charges are: mur­der, escap­ing law­ful cus­tody, pos­ses­sion of a firearm, com­mit­ting com­mon assault on Kerron Prime, Jean-Marc Hernandez, and Nicholas Singh, all of whom are prison offi­cers. He was charged indi­vid­u­al­ly for each assault. A per­son can be charged with com­mon law assault if they are threat­en­ing anoth­er per­son with a gun. Selby was also charged with shoot­ing at police offi­cers, Leon Grouse and Tishon Francis, with intent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm armed with a firearm. The prison escapee was also charged for rob­bing Javid Ramcharitar of a Nissan Navara val­ued at $200,000.

Together with two oth­er pris­on­ers, armed with a firearm, he is also accused of steal­ing two keys for prison gates val­ued at $140. He was not called upon to plead to the charges. According to his lawyer Criston J Williams, Selby want­ed to plead guilty to escap­ing law­ful cus­tody, but the police pros­e­cu­tor, Inspector Winston Dillon denied his request because the Director of Public Prosecutions had to assign a state pros­e­cu­tor to the case. Selby’s case was adjourned until September 1. Selby, along with fel­low pris­on­ers Allan “Scanny” Martin, 42, and Hassan Atwell, 41, shot their way out of the Port-of-Spain prison on July 24, killing Maynard as they did so and throw­ing the city into chaos. Maynard was shot in the front seat pas­sen­ger seat of a police vehi­cle as he and two oth­er col­leagues were on sen­try duty out­side the prison. He died of his injuries while under­go­ing emer­gency surgery. Martin was killed in a shootout with police moments lat­er at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital while Atwell was found mur­dered at East Dry River, Port-of-Spain a day lat­er. Selby sur­ren­dered on July 26. Story orig­i­nat­ed here: 10 charges for prison escapee