‘I Did Not Drag Him Into This’: Facey Denies Fabricating Evidence To Pin Austin Crawford As An Accomplice In The Centennial Towers Attempted Murder Plot

By Alric Lindsay

The Grand Court trial concerning the Centennial Towers attempted murder escalated into a blistering battle over witness credibility today, October 22, 2026, as defence counsel systematically exposed the Crown’s star witness as a highly manipulative individual who repeatedly massaged his statements to fit the prosecution’s narrative and camera footage shown to him by detectives.

Jimmal Facey, an accomplice-turned-prosecution witness who secured a highly coveted absolute immunity agreement from the Director of Public Prosecutions, faced a gruelling day of cross-examination today. Leading the questioning this afternoon, prominent defence attorney Rhiannon Sara Crimmins KC methodically stripped away Facey’s credibility. By quoting directly from his past recorded interviews and comparing them against his live testimony, Crimmins KC demonstrated a clear pattern: Facey was a man who would say or alter absolutely anything to preserve his immunity agreement and avoid rotting in a prison cell.

Desperate for a Deal: Quoting the Interview Transcripts

Crimmins KC began her assault by forcing Facey to revisit his own words from his initial March 2025 interview with Detective Inspector (DI) Wright. The defence read transcripts aloud to the jury, painting a stark picture of a suspect who wanted a deal with the prosecution so badly he was practically begging for it.

“I didn’t pull the trigger… Only one gun went off,” Facey had asserted to detectives, quickly shifting into a frantic plea for state intervention. “I’m in fear… now I know say I goin’ be dead. I am asking for protection of the government.”

Crimmins KC emphasized that Facey’s primary motivation from day one was absolute self-preservation and a desperation to escape custody. She read Facey’s interview statements further from the transcript where Facey said: “I need help at this moment. I hope the judge or the DPP can find it in their heart to help me… I hope the DPP listening to this video and he try to do something to help me.”

The defence highlighted that Facey’s demands went far beyond simple protection. He explicitly told detectives: “Nah much I asking for… I can come to an agreement. One of the things I am asking for is to leave the Cayman Islands.” He openly admitted on the stand today that he wanted out of prison and out of Cayman entirely and fully understood that to get his demands met and save himself, he had to provide information implicating others.

The Chronology Chameleon: Fitting Testimony to the Narrative

Once Crimmins KC established Facey’s overwhelming motive to fabricate stories for his freedom, Crimmins KC meticulously compared what Facey said in those early interviews against what he had just told the jury.

When confronted with a physical map of the area, Facey’s timeline regarding the initial rendezvous at Schooner Lane completely fractured. Today, he confidently told the jury that defendant Austin Crawford arrived at Schooner Lane after him. Yet, Crimmins KC immediately confronted him with his January 13, 2026, police interview, where he explicitly stated Crawford was already there waiting when he arrived. Trapped by his own words, Facey lamely retreated, claiming it was merely an “honest mistake.”

Crimmins KC then exposed an identical pattern regarding the firearms used in the ambush. She noted that Facey told Vickers KC, who leads the prosecution case, that the guns came from Jamie Ebanks.   However, in Facey’s January 13 interview, he told police he got one of the guns from Austin Crawford. Facey attempted to dodge the contradiction, saying, “I wouldn’t recall that.”

When Crimmins KC asked Facey to reconcile what he said in the January 13 interview with his current version of events, he said, “When they asked about the firearms, Jamie would have had a firearm in his pocket and Austin had the 9mm all day driving around.”

“That is a lie,” Crimmins KC put to Facey. “You are trying to match up different versions… You are pulling Austin Crawford into a bigger role.”

“No ma’am,” Facey shot back defensively. “The original owners for the firearm would have been Jamie and his brother. I did not drag him into this.”

Crimmins KC hammered home her point to the jury: whenever Facey was presented with a new set of facts or a specific chronology by investigators, he actively massaged his narrative, sliding the pieces around to fit whatever theory the prosecution was advancing at the time. When it came to the CCTV cameras, Crimmins KC painted a picture for the jury that Facey custom-fit his recollections to match the surveillance footage after the fact.

The Unchanged Manipulator: Psychological Profile Exposed

To prove to the jury that Facey’s deceptive behaviour was a deeply ingrained, lifelong trait rather than a temporary lapse, Crimmins KC produced a massive chronological log of psychological and psychiatric evaluations spanning nearly two decades. The defence detailed reports from Dr. Hawkins in 2009, an evaluation in 2011, a court-ordered report in 2014, and an evaluation by Dr. Barnaby in 2015.

Facey grew intensely defensive as his past caught up with him, protesting to the bench: “That was supposed to be a record that was supposed to be sealed when I was a juvenile.”

Crimmins KC paid no heed to the protest, reading directly from a 2016 clinical profile compiled by a doctor ahead of Facey’s sentencing for a prior armed robbery. The report described a 15-year-old Facey who was clinically assessed as “self-centred, manipulative, indifferent to other people, and lacking empathy.”

“Do you think you are like that now?” Crimmins KC asked point-blank. “No,” Facey replied.

However, Crimmins KC masterfully demonstrated to the jury that Facey had not changed a single bit since those clinical descriptions were written. She proved that his historical habit of blaming others for his actions—noted heavily in a 2017 social worker report—was exactly what he was doing today by pinning the Centennial Towers shooting on Austin Crawford to save himself.

She further proved his unchanged nature by exposing his history of weaponizing threats of self-harm. When confronted with 2017 records showing he threatened suicide to get his way and manipulate prison staff, Facey offered a telling response: “Sometimes I have suicidal thoughts, but I would never take it out on myself.”

TikTok Videos and the Ultimate Deception

The climax of the cross-examination linked Facey’s violent past directly to his current behaviour. Facey admitted on the stand that he felt no guilt for pointing a gun at a female convenience store worker until after he was sentenced and accepted he was wrong for a 2025 incident where he brandished a loaded firearm at a Subway restaurant full of people.

Crimmins KC then dropped a bombshell, producing evidence that between January 6, 2026, and the present day—months after being granted state immunity as a supposedly reformed witness—Facey recorded a video for TikTok that was designed to give viewers the impression that he was holding a gun.

Facey desperately tried to downplay the video as an unposted draft, claiming he was “just making a video.”

Crimmins KC tore the excuse apart, exposing the calculated psychological motive behind it. The defence put it directly to Facey that he recorded the video for the exact same reason he was lying on the witness stand: to manipulate people. She asserted that he intentionally made the video to cultivate a dangerous online persona and make the public believe he still maintained active access to illegal firearms.

Crimmins KC’s line of questioning left the jury with a chilling takeaway: the cold, manipulative, and dangerous individual documented in psychological evaluations from 2009 to 2017 is exactly the same untrustworthy person standing in the witness box today. Facey’s entire live testimony, the defence argued, was simply his latest and greatest manipulation—a custom-built story told strictly to satisfy the prosecution, preserve his immunity, and buy his way out of jail.

With the courtroom remaining in a state of high tension, Justice Peters excused the jury until 10:30 am on  Friday, October 23, when this critical cross-examination is scheduled to resume.