Technical difficulties stall trial

There was an early adjournment on Friday in the lottery scamming trial of Tommy Lee Sparta and O’Brian Smith in the Circuit Court, downtown Kingston, after technical difficulties delayed the trial judge’s request to view evidentiary material.

The viewing of the evidence surrounded the raw data extracted from the HP laptop and external hard drive which were seized by the police in 2014.

The attorney for the prosecution, Sophia Thomas, told the court that she had written to defence attorney Ernest Smith and served him with a CD containing the relevant data.

But Justice Carolyn Tie told the court that she was interested in forming her own judgement of the material and wanted to see what was on the device.

When she asked Smith how he felt, he agreed.

"Having looked at the CD my concern, in my opinion is it is inappropriate evidentially, for the prosecution at this late hour to be seeking to put into evidence extracts from the items which are alleged to be examined by Mr Campbell (the forensic examiner). It is not a fulsome recital of the entire CD,” he said.

When the court attempted to proceed, the clerk revealed that the antecedents (evidence paperwork) were mistakenly taken up by another officer who was on his way to Hanover and could not be reached by phone.

NEEDED AN OVERRIDE

Tie then sought to have the material on the hard drive shown to her. 
Campbell told the court that based on the current position, only some of the evidence may be able for viewing.
But the viewing was stalled a second time after it was revealed that the clerk’s access to the computer needed an override by someone in the IT department.

The clerk returned to the courtroom saying, “Calls were made to several IT personnel and we are unable to get through to any one of them.”

Tie then told the accused that due to the technical difficulties, the court would set aside Tuesday and Wednesday to proceed "and expect that we will be finished with the evidence by then.”