A man accused of handling and firing a gun has been acquitted after a key witness at his trial told the court she’d lied to police about the incident.

Zikai Cann, 24, of Seawall Drive, Sandys denied possessing and discharging a firearm on a date between November 11 and 16 of 2009.

According to the Crown, a 9mm bullet was later recovered by police from a fridge at the White Gate Lane, Sandys residence of Tiffany Eatherley.

However, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves subsequently ruled that there was no case to answer in Mr Cann’s trial, after determining that the jury couldn’t take evidence from the main witness into account.

Ms Eatherley was deemed a hostile witness, after she insisted before the jury that her December 31, 2009 interview with police had been “all a lie”, and that she didn’t remember making it.

In his ruling, made public yesterday, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said Ms Eatherley had initially told police she saw the defendant “pistol-whip another man”, and that he later gave her a lift to her home.

“There in her kitchen alone with her immediately after arrival he produced a firearm in hand and began to clean it,” Mr Justice Greaves wrote.

“This scared her so much she asked him to remove it, particularly as he appeared to be pointing it at her and waving it around. Whilst he was cleaning it, it accidentally went off, causing her to dash to the ground in fear that she was shot.

“So loud was the bang, her ears were ringing. He, like her, was shaken up. He in startled fashion commented, the safety was not on.”

Mr Justice Greaves added that on the night of a shooting that occurred “about a month or so later”, the defendant told her that he was bringing clothing to her house.

“The defendant arrived and brought a red jacket and black jeans which he put on her couch. She recognised that these were the same clothing he was wearing on the night he discharged the firearm into her fridge door.”

Ms Eatherley’s house was searched after police contacted her for an investigation, and a bullet hole was discovered in her fridge, covered with a magnet.

The clothing was also seized, and presented as evidence in the trial.

During her original police interview, Ms Eatherley ascribed her reluctance to speak to her belief that the defendant was a gang member.

Although she took the stand at Mr Cann’s trial last week, Ms Eatherley repeatedly called the details of her interview “untruths” and told the jury she’d been lying.

Mr Justice Greaves noted, however, that the key pieces of evidence in the trail “tend to contradict her assertions that what she told the police was a lie”.

Defence lawyer Charles Richardson argued that the jury couldn’t be left to determine whether the evidence given in court or that given in her earlier statement was true.

During the trial, Ms Eatherley maintained that she never saw the defendant holding a gun — and said the shot had been fired during a party with around ten people in the house.

She also told the court she hadn’t seen who fired the gun.

Mr Justice Greaves determined that the jury would only have been allowed to consider Ms Eatherley’s evidence that she had previously lied and was now telling the truth — leaving no material evidence.

“In the circumstances it may be reasonable to feel that this was a witness well groomed to testify in a manner that fits the present law,” he wrote, adding that “it may to some leave a bad taste in the mouth of justice, but it will have to be swallowed hard and a finding of no case to be answered must be returned, leaving to the relevant authorities the option to remedy the situation by legislation if they desire”.