Relief washed over Raymond O'Brien Rogers' face yesterday after a Supreme Court jury acquitted him of one charge of robbery.

However the result could just have easily been a mistrial after a Crown counsel allowed original statements to be included in the exhibits that went to the jury room.

Moments after the jury was off considering its verdict, Crown counsel Melvin Douglas and defence lawyer Mark Pettingill were locked in verbal combat over the correct procedure for making the statements available to the jury as exhibits.

Mr. Pettingill was adamant that Mr. Douglas failed to follow the Chief Justice's direction and have all references to Rogers' girlfriend deleted from the statements he made to Police.

Mr. Douglas had neglected to place only a copy of the edited version before the jury and Mr. Pettingill became irate.

Fortunately the court officer was able to obtain the envelope that contained the statements before the jury ever saw it and Mr. Douglas was able to make copies of the originals with the irrelevant matters deleted and place those before the panel.

That process added 30 minutes to the jury's deliberations and they took close to two hours before the forewoman pronounced the not guilty verdict at 5.04 p.m. after being sent out at 3.12 p.m.

In the end the jury accepted that identification was the seminal issue in the case. And the Crown failed to prove that Rogers was the person that the security cameras captured in the shop on the day of the alleged offence.

Earlier in the trial it emerged that the security camera did not capture any details of the man who walked into the Enterprise grocery store in Hamilton Parish and held up the female cashier with a knife.

Despite the use of special equipment to play the video tape, the Police were still unable to identify the armed bandit with any certainty since he wore a crash helmet and shades.

Sgt. Peter Giles, the investigating officer, told the court that the quality of the pictures did not help to further the Police investigation. The Crown had alleged that Rogers made off with a handful of fifty and twenty dollar notes after he walked into the Enterprise Grocery Store on the afternoon of April 7, 1997 and threatened the cashier with a knife.

In statements to Police taken on April 25, 1997 the 43-year-old self employed mason, denied ever meeting Deborah Thompson, the cashier he is alleged to have robbed.

And he said that she was mistaken when she picked him out of an identification parade at Prospect.

Rogers said that he was last in the Enterprise Grocery three months prior to the alleged incident and at the time that the store was robbed he was on his way to pick up his children from Francis Patton Primary School.

Still photographs produced in court depicted a figure standing near the cash register making a purchase but the quality was too poor to make out exactly who the persons were. Moreover, the photograph captured a moment before the robbery had taken place and was thus unhelpful in deciding Rogers' guilt or innocence.

Rogers, 43, of Cottage Hill, Hamilton Parish, denied being armed with a knife and robbing the cashier of more then $70 on April 7 this year.

Thompson testified on Monday. She said that she was in the Hamilton Parish store around 2:30 p.m. when it was robbed.

She said that she was standing behind the cash register when a man came in and walked to the back of the store. The man was standing beside the dog food that was located on the back shelf. He stayed there for a few seconds, picked up a tin of Alpo dog food and walked up to the cash register.

After purchasing the tin for $0.94 cents the man left. A few seconds later the cashier claimed the same man walked quickly back into the store, brandished a knife and ordered her to open the till.

The bandit then reached in and took a handful of twenty and fifty dollar notes and ran away.

Rogers was represented by lawyer Mark Pettingill, Melvin Douglas appeared for the Crown. Chief Justice Austin Ward presided.