Akil Williams confessed to killing 18-year-old Jason Lightbourne on the morning of the shooting, a witness told the Supreme Court yesterday.

The witness further told the court that she saw Mr Williams viciously beaten at his home three weeks after the killing. He was found dead on Vesey Street the next day.

Prince Barrington Edness, 28, has denied a charge that he acted with Mr Williams and others to murder Mr Lightbourne on July 23, 2006.

The Supreme Court had heard that Mr Lightbourne was driving along Ord Road early that morning when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on his car, shooting the teenager in the head.

Prosecutors have suggested the shooting was a revenge attack sparked by an incident that night, which left a young man in King Edward VII Memorial Hospital with serious injuries.

As the trial continued, a “friend and lover” of Mr Williams took the stand, telling the court that Mr Williams was linked to two Hamilton-based gangs, although she hesitated to refer to the groups as gangs. She also noted that Mr Williams was the cousin of Jahkeil Samuels, who she said was a leader of one particular gang in 2006, along with Mr Edness.

The witness, who cannot be identified because of a reporting restriction, said that she was with Mr Williams at his home on the morning of the shooting. She said that at some point during the night, Mr Williams received a phone call and left.

She told the court that after he left, she went to the Spinning Wheel nightclub and bar and waited for Mr Williams to return. When he did, she said that he was not acting like himself.

As soon as he approached her, he told her that they had to leave. The pair went to his home, where he confessed that he had carried out the shooting on Ord Road.

According to her testimony, an associate whose nickname cannot be used for legal reasons had been given a gun and instructed to carry out the attack because he was $7,000 in debt to another man. The associate in turn called Mr Williams to ask for assistance.

Mr Williams told the witness that they both rode to the Ord Road area with the intent of his associate being the one to pull the trigger, but Mr Williams took the firearm after his associate failed to act. He said the pair rode alongside a white car and Mr Williams unloaded the weapon into the vehicle.

She told the court that when she asked Mr Williams about the firearm, he took her outside and showed her an object wrapped in a white T-shirt. He subsequently buried the object behind his house.

She told the court that Mr Williams seemed to regret his actions, telling her that he wanted to move back to New Jersey.

“He was upset,” she said. “He wasn’t his normal character.”

Three weeks later, she said that she was again at Mr Williams’s home when he heard a noise outside and urged her to leave immediately, punching the screen out of a window and helping her through it.

While she hid behind the house, she saw a group of five men attack Mr Williams, setting his dog on fire before beating him in the face with a metal weight. They then dragged him into a car, taking his bike, helmet and keys.

She said Mr Williams’s body was discovered the next morning near Vesey Street, in Devonshire.

Asked why she believed the men had attacked Mr Williams, she said: “Akil still had the gun from the Jason Lightbourne murder.”

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Marc Daniels, the witness accepted that she never mentioned Mr Edness in connection to either the murder of Mr Lightbourne or the attack on Mr Williams.

The jury also heard a police interview with Mr Edness, recorded days after Mr Lightbourne’s murder.

In the interview, the defendant told officers that on the evening of July 22 he had been at the home of Mr Samuels until about midnight, when he returned home to prepare for a night out.

He said that he had showered and was relaxing when he received phone calls telling him that a friend had been stabbed. He drove to Princess Street at about 2.30am to find out what happened, meeting with Mr Samuels’s mother and cousin. He said that he stayed in the area for about an hour and a half before riding to KEMH with Mr Samuels’s cousin.

Mr Edness said that he arrived at the hospital just before 4am and was immediately told to move his bike, which he did. He then went to the entrance to the emergency department, but was unable to see his friend.

He told the officers that he remained there for about an hour, speaking with friends and trying to find out what happened, before police began trying to collect the names of those at the hospital. At that point, he said the crowd began to leave the area.

Asked if he was involved at all in the murder of Mr Lightbourne, Mr Edness responded: “No, I was not.”

The court also heard evidence from Darren Glasford, of the Forensic Support Unit, who was one of several officers sent to KEMH on the morning of the shooting.

He told the court that he arrived at the hospital at about 3.30am, at which point a crowd had already begun to gather. He was still at the hospital minutes after 4am when he received a report of gunshots in the Ord Road area. Minutes later, he received a second report that officers had arrived on scene.

The officer said that shortly after receiving that report, he saw Mr Edness arrive at the hospital on a motorcycle with Mr Williams on the back.

“As I recall, a security guard asked them to move the bike from where they were parking it, which they did,” he said.

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