As the trial for three men accused of burglary with an imitation gun nears its end, one of the accused took the stand to deny all involvement.

Tyun Smith-Ming, 25, told the Supreme Court he didn’t even know the two other men — Justis Smith and Jerome Mader — who have been charged alongside him with the July 24, 2012 home invasion of a North Shore Road, Pembroke residence.

“I did not commit any burglary that morning,” Mr Smith-Ming told defence lawyer Larry Mussenden.

Ordinarily a resident of Ord Road, Paget, Mr Smith-Ming told the court he’d grown up in the St Monica’s Road area and was well known as being from there.

He maintained that he was coming through a short cut in the bushes to Marsh Folly Road, on his way to visit a female friend, when he happened upon the scene of an arrest.

The man being apprehended was Justis Smith, 34, whom police say they caught in a car parked by the roadside just after two men in black jumped into the back and waved an apparent gun.

Both would-be passengers subsequently fled the scene.

Mr Smith, who was then arrested, is accused of driving the getaway vehicle after two men broke into a nearby home.

One resident of the house was threatened with the imitation weapon after confronting two masked intruders, while her father was stabbed in the shoulder, with a knife believed to have been taken from their own kitchen.

The two burglars then left the house.

Yesterday, Mr Smith-Ming told the jury he’d been spending the night of July 23 at a girlfriend’s house on Orchard Grove, near St Monica’s Road.

Toward midnight, he said he’d called his mother at a nearby residence called, the bungalow, and asked for some food.

Mr Mussenden asked him: “Is that the house police described as a crack house for people using drugs?”

“I wouldn’t disagree,” Mr Smith-Ming replied.

He said he’d visited a house on St Monica’s Road after eating, and was then headed to the home of another woman, when he took a shortcut from Footbridge Lane down to Marsh Folly Road.

Asked why he’d opted to use a path through bushes, Mr Smith-Ming explained: “People don’t really use St Monica’s Road any more, because of all the issues — nobody that really hangs in the area.” He said people nowadays didn’t sit out on the main road either.

Mr Smith-Ming said he slipped and fell in the undergrowth, and lost his baseball cap, which he then climbed back over the wall to try and find.

Arriving at the road, he said: “At first I heard noises — I didn’t pay too much attention. I saw a car pull over, police had somebody in the road, arresting him.”

He said he merely wondered what was going on.

“I had no real worries because I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Mr Smith-Ming told the court. “I minded my own business, and went out Marsh Folly Road and up the hill. That’s when the police confronted me and stopped me on suspicion of burglary.”

Earlier in the trial, the court heard that DNA linked to Mr Smith-Ming was recovered from gloves taken from the car.

Asked by his lawyer how his DNA could possibly be in gloves that he denied owning, Mr Smith-Ming said: “Only thing I could think of is up at my mom’s house, which is a crack house, people come and go, things are bought and sold occasionally. I may have had to move something. Maybe I touched the gloves or my mom asked me to clean the yard. I can remember using a pair of gloves to move a fridge or couch.”

He admitted having latex gloves in his pocket, but said they’d been for some mechanical work.

“I forgot to take them out,” he said. “Earlier me and my cousin were working on my bike and I never took them out.”

The trial continues next week.