The high stress environment of a shooting incident could have led to mistaken identification of an attempted murder accused, a lawyer told a Supreme Court jury yesterday.

Marc Daniels, defence counsel for Kyari Flood, claimed that much of the circumstantial evidence put forward by prosecutors was inaccurate.

He suggested that the victim’s girlfriend, who was a witness to the shooting and identified the masked gunman as Mr Flood from his eyes, would have been more focused on the weapon.

Mr Daniels said the mask obscured the gunman’s face and that the woman assumed it was Mr Flood after she was shown a photograph of him in an identification parade that was higher resolution than the others.

Mr Daniels told the court: “Even a mother can mistake her own offspring – her own flesh and blood.

“I’m not saying anyone’s lying, I’m saying we’re human and people make mistakes.”

He added: “When we think about our memories, we often don’t see a movie played out in our minds – we see fragments of images.

“Those fragments are being constructed by the brain, which perceive certain things differently.”

Mr Daniels was speaking as the prosecution and defence summed up their cases for the jury.

Mr Flood, 22, has denied a charge of attempted murder, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and using a firearm to commit an indictable offence.

The incident is alleged happened on March 24, 2020 on Parson’s Road.

Maria Sofianos, for the Crown, told the jury that Mr Flood and the gunman both wore white helmets on the night of the shooting, as seen on CCTV footage, and that they were the same person.

She added that the home Mr Flood was staying at was close to the shooting scene and that he had had “ample time” to return to his house, change his clothes and discard the gun before returning to the scene to see if his victim had died.

Ms Sofianos said that Mr Flood parked his motorbike at the Evening Light Pentecostal Church on Parson’s Road, Pembroke.

She added that he ran after he saw police lights in the distance but was chased and arrested.

But Mr Daniels said that a gunman would have had no reason to go back to the shooting scene and that his client was in the area because he needed to get his pain medication, which he had left at a friend’s house.

He added that Mr Flood parked next to church because there were no safe places to park on Deepdale Road West, where his friend stayed.

Mr Daniels said that his client had no gunshot residue on his clothes or body and did not smell as if he had just showered.

He added: “The Crown cannot just skirt over the lack of forensic evidence.

“The Crown cannot point to any specific evidence that would make you feel sure that Mr Flood was involved in any way in this situation.”

The court earlier heard that the 37-year-old victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was shot outside his home after two men arrived at his house on a single motorcycle.

He ran into the house and the gunman followed, but the attacker left when the victim hid in the bathroom.

The victim’s girlfriend, who took the stand earlier, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, said that she recognised the gunman and had identified him as Mr Flood.

Ms Sofianos said that Mr Flood had been the one to go into the house because he knew the couple and the layout of the home.

She added that the victim’s girlfriend had the incident “forever seared into her mind” after she was awoken by a gunshot and saw her partner bleeding from a wound to his arm.

Ms Sofianos admitted that gunshot residue was not found on Mr Flood or his clothes and that the gun used in the incident was never found.

But she insisted that there was enough circumstantial evidence that, when put together, “points to Kyari Flood being the shooter”.

Ms Sofianos said: “We say that each piece of circumstantial evidence is a strand that, when taken together as a whole, draws you to the conclusion that the defendant is guilty of the offences charged.”

The trial continues.

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