A 42 associate shot at rivals from Parkside in a city street after a bar brawl in Captain’s Lounge, a prosecutor claimed yesterday.

Alvone Maybury, 24, is on trial accused of pulling the trigger — sending a bullet towards a frightened bystander and the alleged Parkside men.

According to prosecutor Carrington Mahoney, Maybury went to Captain’s Lounge on December 18, 2009 with two friends, “apparently to have some discussion” with Parkside.

An argument erupted and the two groups ended up outside the bar on Reid Street, Hamilton.

”We’re saying that the accused, who went to Captain’s Lounge armed with a firearm, when he came outside he fired a shot in the direction of the opposing group, the Parkside group,” Mr. Mahoney told the jury.

Witness Egbert Christopher was drinking in the bar around midnight when he noticed an argument between a group of around eight men.”It was like two groups of four.

It was like a little bit of arguing, a little bit of shoving,” said Mr. Christopher, who did not pay attention to what was said.<

The men exited the bar, and he followed around five minutes later to have a cigarette outside.

Mr. Christopher told the jury the men were still arguing outside on the street, then one group walked off west towards Queen Street. The others remained nearer to him.”Then one person from the group that was closer to me, one of the gentlemen, he was still making off. He was shouting at the group of gentlemen that was furthest away from me, and one of his friends told him to cool down and relax,” he explained.

As he turned his attention to lighting his cigarette, Mr. Christopher said he heard a “pap” like a gun being fired towards him from the direction of the men near Queen Street.

”It came towards me, or up in the air. That’s how I took it, coming towards me from the west,” said Mr. Christopher.

“After I heard the ‘pap’ sound I looked up, and the first group of guys that was close to me, they ducked and jumped on the ground, like ducking for cover. A couple of them went flat and a couple of them crouched.”

He continued ”I was very slow to react, I was a bit shocked. After I realised it, and processed it, I patted myself down to make sure I wasn’t hit.”

He described seeing the men nearest Queen Street make off from the scene in one car, while the group nearest him made off in two other cars. He did not recognise any of them, but estimated their ages to be in the 18 to 30 range.

Asked by Mr. Mahoney how he felt about the incident, Mr. Christopher said: ”I was frightened, shocked, and if the projectile did come in my direction — I don’t know if it did or didn’t —: I’m just glad I didn’t get hit by it.”

A bullet casing was found at 4.25 p.m on December 19 by 19-year-old student Alexander Gozney. He told the court in a statement that he spotted the item in the middle of the pedestrian crossing at the corner of Reid and Queen Streets, called the Police, and waited by it until they arrived.

Maybury was arrested at the Plaza Cafe in Walker Arcade, off Reid Street, around 12.45 p.m on December 21, on suspicion of possessing a firearm.

Police Constable David Bird seized a BlackBerry cell phone from the pocket of Maybury’s pants. This was later examined by Police Constable Robert Goodchild, a computer forensic examiner, who showed the jury pictures and videos extracted from the phone on January 6, 2010.

The pictures were taken between 12.16 a.m. on December 17, 2009 and 8.07 a.m. on December 21. Pc Goodchild did not detail for the jury who or what they were seeing in the pictures, which were projected onto a screen in court.

However, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves commented that one showed “a man with what appears to be a gun in one hand, and a magazine in the other”. Another, he described as “a lady holding a gun”.

The videos were recorded between 5.11 p.m. on December 12, 2009 and 4.42 p.m. on December 19. They appear to show a man brandishing a handgun.

The jury also heard from Police Sergeant Raoul Ming of the Armed Response Unit, who recovered an unloaded 9 mm Beretta handgun from a dumpster behind Traditions Restaurant in Sandys at 10.30 p.m. on January 14, 2010.

The unloaded firearm was wrapped in a red and white bandanna, and was inside a canvas bag inside a box.

On January 15, Detective Constable Peter Thompson swabbed the gun and magazine for DNA and fingerprints, but the tests came back negative.

Maybury, of no fixed abode, denies possessing a gun and ammunition and discharging a shot from a firearm, and his trial is set to continue tomorrow.