Police expert witness’ evidence on trial
Judge assessing whether conversation link claim helps Crown’s case
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2023 | 1:43 AM
Chief Justice Bryan Sykes is to determine whether the evidence of a police expert witness called to establish a connection between secretly recorded conversations of alleged Clansman-One Don Gang members and three phones assisted the prosecution’s case.
A former gang member, who is one of two main prosecution witnesses, testified that he had secretly recorded conversations with alleged then-cronies, including reputed leader Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan, on three phones using a call-recording application he had downloaded.
Two of the phones were reportedly given to him by the police while Bryan had funded the purchase of the third after the witness told him that he was having trouble with his mobile.
The phones were subsequently handed over to the police and the conversations extracted and transcribed. The transcripts and recordings were entered into evidence.
However, Justice Sykes, in reviewing the evidence of the expert witness, noted that he was very unsure about the information the Crown was seeking to adduce during his evidence-in-chief. The witness was also unable, in some instances, to explain contents of a report he presented.
The expert witness had analysed and prepared the extracted data.
The judge recalled that the witness was unable, at one point, to distinguish between outgoing and incoming calls. The expert witness was also unable to say which application created the audio files.
“The expert here is telling us that there are three columns that are there, and if he is not sure what is there, then I suspect I won’t be either,” the chief justice said.
Justice Sykes said that he was trying to establish whether the presumed link of the transcript and audio recording to the data extracted from the phones corroborated, or undermined, the witness’ evidence.
“The Crown was trying to provide supporting evidence for Mr … recording endeavours, so the Crown was endeavouring to suggest that what was on the transcripts after you extracted the information you will see the ins and the outs, but this expert that was supposed to come and put it beyond a doubt that when you see in, it’s an incoming call, and when you see out, it’s an outgoing call ... but up to this point, the expert who began so promisingly became increasingly uncertain about his explanation,” the judge said.
The judge also said that the evidence provided by witnesses from the two main telecoms providers did not advance the Crown’s case. He noted that both witnesses seemed to lack the technical expertise to corroborate the State’s assertions.
Twenty-seven defendants are being tried on an indictment with 14 counts under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act and the Firearms Act.
Five others were earlier freed while another was killed while on bail last August.
Justice Sykes will continue his summation today.