Judge slams prosecution during gang trial

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes yesterday blasted the prosecution in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial for what he considered its continuous failure to provide supporting and affirmative evidence.

He stressed that too much reliance was being placed on the issue of credibility rather than on affirmative and independent evidence.

"We must move away from this kind of nonsense," he said. "This is the 21st century and it's not a lack of technology, it's not a lack of resources. It's not a lack of opportunity. The technology is available why not use it." Sykes was speaking after a prosecutor, who was responding to a no-case submission for defendant Jason 'City Puss' Brown, noted that the police witness who had pointed him out in court had misidentified his voice on one of three secret recordings. Sykes queried why the voice notes were not submitted but was told that they were in another case. The retired inspector of police who was called to identify the defendant had testified that he listened to threatening voice notes that were allegedly sent by Brown to business owners in Spanish Town demanding extortion fees. He later went to Horizon Remand Centre where he tricked Brown into speaking with him to ascertain whether the voice on the recordings was his. The witness said after speaking with Brown and after listening to his outburst after he was charged, he confirmed that the voices were the same. He also testified that he had spent about an hour outside Brown's cell at the courthouse listening to another of his outbursts which was similar to the voice notes.

But Sykes questioned why the police had not employed the use of modern means of investigation or recorded the conversation during the visit.

"Too much shortcut man, coming in from the police," he said. "So we are just supposed to accept it on the face. That is not sufficient in the modern world."

"Here is a police officer who says he is going to Horizon and the purpose of going to Horizon is to put a face to the voice. This is not an accidental meeting and we must just trust his memory and recollection," he said. "He says he sits outside of a cell for nearly an hour and this man is talking about voice identification and no recording, in this day and age, really?"

The judge was also asked to consider that Brown had been making calls from behind prison. According to the Crown, this was supported by the call record data which showed that the six numbers which had been stored in the witness' phones under the name 'City' had made numerous calls to the witness, and that at the time of the calls, the phone numbers were being serviced by a cell tower located close to Horizon.

The prosecution completed its response to the no-case submission for 24 of the remaining 28 defendants and it is expected that the judge will rule today when the case resumes.