In dramatic and tearful testimony yesterday, Andy Barnes, father of 4-year-old Jeremiah, told the Grand Court how Devon Anglin had shot his son through the eye, killing him as he left the Hell Road Esso station.

The testimony came on the second day of a three-week trial in which Mr Anglin stands accused of five counts, including murder, attempted murder, possession of a firearm and threatening violence. Mr Anglin pleaded innocent to all charges.

Called by the prosecution, Mr Barnes told visiting Jamaican Grand Court Justice Howard Cooke that Mr Anglin had fired at him repeatedly as he drove his white Chevrolet Malibu past the gunman in the forecourt of the petrol station, seeking to escape the fusillade directed at him, his wife Dorlissa Ebanks, in the passenger seat, and sons Jamaul, 6, and Jeremiah, in the rear.

“Just as I started to move, he started to come two more feet towards me and started to open fire. He had the gun in both hands. The windows were halfway down, my front windows and the back windows,” Mr Barnes said.

“Six to eight shots were fired” in the station, he said, “and continued as I drove away. When I drove around him, he was no more than five feet away. Dorlissa was screaming and jumping inside the car, trying to get the kids to stay in their seats and duck down.”

Leaving the station at speed, and turning into Hell Road, Mr Barnes said the shooting continued. “I could hear the gun firing, plus there was a shot through the front passenger door near the wing mirror.”

Finally driving out of range of the gunman, he said, “I looked to see if everyone was all right,” Mr Barnes told prosecutor Andrew Radcliffe.

“They were not all right,” he said, weeping into a tissue. “My next son, Jamaul, told me that Jeremiah was sleeping. I looked around and saw what was happening. He had been shot through his eye. I drove to West Bay police station. I wouldn’t even know what to call the state I was in,” he said.

An ambulance was called and took Jeremiah to George Town Hospital. I left [the station] with my son, and stayed at the hospital for a number of hours after that, ” Mr Barnes said.

Doctors pronounced Jeremiah dead about 8:30. Less than one hour later, at 9:20, police arrested Mr Anglin in West Bay, charged with the attempted murder of Andy Barnes.

“The arresting officer said he appeared to be drunk,” Mr Radcliffe told the court. “Devon Anglin complained, saying that ‘Andy Barnes earlier today tried to kill me with a 12 gauge’. Asked if he had reported it, he said ‘no, I don’t talk to police.’  He was handcuffed and taken to George Town police station,” the prosecutor said.

“He was verbally abusive as the police swabbed his hands for DNA. He was uncooperative, irritable and threatening, He said it looked like he was being framed and that someone had tried to shoot him at Birch Tree Hill about 8:30 or 9:00. He said he would break out and had shot a man in the face and would start shooting police officers.

“He continued to make threats, saying he had access to firearms, including an AK-47 rifle,” Mr Radcliffe said.

In a brief interlude, defence attorney John Ryder, QC, indicated that he was likely to contest the identification of Mr Anglin on the grainy CCTV footage, in which the gunman is both masked and hooded.

The trial continues.