Dramatic testimony of mum accused of gun death

SOCIALITE Jasmine Hartin’s full dramatic account of how a Belizean police chief was shot dead as they enjoyed a moonlight drink together is revealed for the first time today in The Mail on Sunday.

The partner of Lord Ashcroft’s son accidentally killed her friend, Superintendent Henry Jemmott, with his own gun as he drunkenly tried to teach her to use it, The Mail on Sunday has learned. As Ms Hartin’s story is disclosed for the first time, sources close to the investigation have told this newspaper: Bullets found at the scene convinced prosecutors her claim she had been practising unloading and loading Supt Jemmott’s semi-automatic policeissue Glock 17 handgun were true; Traffic police pulled over a ‘highly intoxicated’ Jemmott that day as he swerved around the island on a golf cart; The superintendent was on holiday, sharing a hotel room with a man who once stood trial for murder; A court’s decision to refuse Ms Hartin’s bail – keeping her locked up in Belize’s most notorious jail – is ‘ poli t i call y motivated’ and designed to assuage the public who are ‘baying for blood’.

Questions are being asked about why Supt Jemmott gave Ms Hartin his service weapon after he had been drinking heavily. It has also been suggested that the officer had been given time off because of his mental wellbeing following relationship problems – prompting claims that he should have had his gun confiscated.

This raises the prospect that Ms Hartin – a Canadian socialite who has twins with Andrew Ashcroft, the son of the former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party – will plead not guilty to a charge of manslaughter by negligence over the incident on May 28 on the island of Ambergris Caye.

Last night a friend said: ‘She has gone through every emotion you can imagine. Initially she was a total wreck but as the days have gone by she has improved.’

A visitor who went to see her added: ‘She’s holding up pretty well. Obviously, as a mother, her main concern is for her twins.’

Ms Hartin’s gripping account of the night of the shooting reveals for the first time how 6ft, 21 stone Supt Jemmott, a police officer with two decades of firearms experience, actively encouraged the 5ft 2in socialite to practise loading and unloading his gun as they sat drinking wine and mini-bottles of potent ‘fireball’ whisky.

A week earlier the policeman, 42, had told her to buy a gun after she was threatened by a man in a bar. We can reveal that it was on a car journey following the incident that Supt Jemmott first gave her his gun and instructed her to practise reloading the bullets.

Of the night of the fatal shooting, she said Supt Jemmott handed her his gun as they were sitting next to each other on the pier looking out to sea. He then asked her to demonstrate her gun skills to see if they had improved.

Ms Hartin said he placed some bullets on the pier after unloading them. Police confirmed last week that bullets were recovered from the scene, with a source adding: ‘That was enough for the Director of Public Prosecutions to accept Jasmine’s account that she had been practising with the gun was substantially true – otherwise how would those bullets have got there? There was no evidence of a deliberate intent to kill somebody.’

The MoS has been told the shooting took place after Supt Jemmott spent the day fishing and drinking with friends including Manuel Pacheco, 59, a jeweller from Belize City who was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 2018 after shooting his neighbour.

Mr Pacheco was kept behind bars for two years until a judge acquitted him in February last year, accepting he acted in self-defence.

A source said police had pulled the two men over earlier on the day of the shooting as they drove around the island in a golf cart: ‘Jemmott was highly intoxicated. The golf cart was swerving all over the place so a traffic officer pulled him over. He definitely had liquor in his system. He was as drunk as f***.’

Police Commissioner Chester Williams last week confirmed that Supt Jemmott had been given time off for ‘personal reasons’.

Multiple sources have said he was having relationship problems with his fiancee Romit Wilson, the mother of his three youngest children, and had asked for a five-day break for his mental wellbeing.

The MoS’s source says Ms Hartin’s lawyers will probably question why a police chief with ‘personal issues’ was allowed to retain his service weapon. A source said: ‘It’s hard to see how Jasmine can be charged with negligence. She was with a trusted senior police officer who was a friend.

‘He had been drinking and was prepared to hand his gun to a woman to practise loading and unloading the weapon.

‘If it is the case that he had been given time off for emotional and personal reasons, why had the police not asked him to hand in his gun?

‘All of this raises questions about where the negligence lay.’