TIMOTHY OZANNE was the man behind the wheel of a stolen Toyota MR2 that rammed a police motorcyclist and was later torched. After a two-day trial in the Royal Court, nine jurats unanimously found him guilty.

The 22-year-old, of Edelstein, Port Soif Lane, Vale, was convicted of stealing the car, assaulting a police officer and driving while banned, dangerously and without insurance.

He will be sentenced on Monday 31 July along with Daniel Clarke, c/o the prison, who has admitted being carried in a stolen vehicle.

The car had been driven at speed around the north of the island on Monday 16 January, at one point being reversed into pursuing motorcyclist PC Yves Le Normand in Basses Capelles, then hitting a VW Beetle before being found on fire at Le Guet.

Defence advocate Chris Green said the case was a very difficult one for the jurats to consider.

‘It involves, among other things, a theft, some dangerous driving and a rather nasty allegation of an assault on a police officer,’ he said.

‘I’m sure you will naturally have sympathy and feeling with the officer and other victims in this case. However, my submission is that you must also do right by the defendant in this case. It’s for the Crown to prove all aspects of this case and the five charges.’

He added on the evidence heard they could not be sure it was the defendant who either stole the MR2 or drove it.

Advocate Green said that while circumstantial evidence could be compelling, in this case it was not.

On the first day of the trial, the prosecution produced witnesses including the handler of police dog, Benson, which had followed a scent from the wreck to where the defendant was being spoken to by officers in the car park at Cobo.

Ozanne had been seen by another witness walking across the car park, having apparently come from the Le Guet after smoke was seen.

The Crown also produced Ozanne’s step-father, Andrew Lohmeier, who unexpectedly did not confirm that the defendant confessed to the offences.

‘Mr Lohmeier did not say that his stepson, the defendant, had admitted responsibility for the offences to him as we had been led to anticipate,’ said Advocate Green.

‘He also added the defendant would probably have needed to wear glasses to drive as far as he was away.’

Advocate Green said that Maryland Service Station attendant Geoffrey Marquis, who served the car at about 7.45am on the day of the offences, could not remember whether the wallet used to pay for the petrol came from the driver or passenger or if the one shown to him by police was the same as the brown one he had seen at the petrol station.

Advocate Green said also that the law required the dog tracking evidence to be considered with a degree of circumspection.

As the car was on fire, the track could not be started from inside the driver’s side and there was no independent corroboration of it, he said.

‘There’s no evidence that backs up the idea it was the defendant who parked the car at Le Guet, set fire to it and walked off.’

He added the defendant’s police interview had not been proven false at all.

In it, Ozanne said he had been walking in the early morning, eventually along the lower part of Le Guet, when he used a public pay phone to ring his stepfather to pick him up.

‘There’s no admissible evidence before the court to show that a phone call was not made from the public phone box by the defendant on the morning in question,’ said Advocate Green.

‘This may be a case where you have some suspicions of the defendant, however in my submission the Crown’s case is just not sufficient to make you sure of his guilt on any or all of the five charges before you. The critical issue in my submission is that you cannot be sure it was the defendant who stole the car or drove it.’

On the first day, the defence had been unsuccessful in an attempt to get the case thrown out for lack of evidence.