Judge blocks prosecution’s bid to show trousers in court

WESTERN BUREAU:

The prosecution in the trial of the three police personnel charged in the 2014 beating death of Mario Deane failed, on two occasions, in their bid to show the denim trousers that Deane was believed to have been wearing on the day he suffered the brutal beating at the Barnett Street Police Station that resulted in his death.

High Court Justice Courtney Daye, who is presiding over the trial of Corporal Elaine Stewart and Constables Juliana Clevon and Marlon Grant, who are facing charges relating to Deane’s death, rejected the prosecution’s applications to show the trousers to the two witnesses, forensic officer Karen Hylton-Grayson and chief forensic science officer Hillary Mullings-Williams of the Institute of Forensic Science and Legal Medicine, who gave their evidence via the Zoom platform.

“The content is marked as an item which is marked for identification, so that is as far as the witness can go in terms of evidence. You would be putting the content in evidence without it yet being in evidence as an exhibit,” Daye told the prosecution when the first application was made during Hylton-Grayson’s evidence-in-chief.

“This witness cannot put it into evidence as an exhibit. She cannot go forward evidentially, and I will not permit her to go any further evidentially,” Daye added.

The judge later repeated his ruling on the matter when the prosecution team applied to show the trousers to Mullings-Williams during her testimony.

ATTEMPT TO SHOW TROUSERS

Yesterday’s sitting marked the second and third time during the trial that the prosecution tried to show the trousers to a witness as part of its case against Stewart, Clevon and Grant, who were reportedly on duty at the Barnett Street Police Station on August 3, 2014 when Deane was beaten.

The prosecution’s first attempt to show the trousers was on April 25, when Deane’s mother, Mercia Fraser, the prosecution’s first witness, retook the stand. At that time, Fraser testified that she received a pair of denim jeans from a doctor at the Cornwall Regional Hospital on August 4, 2014. She said the pants looked like one her son had worn on a visit to her home months before his death.

During yesterday’s hearing, Hylton-Grayson positively identified the package that contained the trousers, which, she said, she received from Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) forensics department head, Peter Parkinson.

Meanwhile, Mullings-Williams told the court that she received and examined several packages containing cotton swabs with blood samples and items of bloodstained clothing, with nearly all the blood samples being of human origin.

The court also heard testimony from the prosecution’s 13th witness, senior forensic science officer Anika Lowe, from the Forensic Institute’s DNA unit, who also testified via the Zoom platform. She testified that she received several packaged exhibits for DNA analysis to be done, including clothing from Deane’s cellmates, swabs taken from Deane’s cell area, fingernail clippings from Deane’s hands, and a pair of trousers that were handed over by Fraser.

The trial continues today, with Lowe completing her evidence-in-chief.

Stewart, Clevon, and Grant are charged with manslaughter and misconduct in a public office in relation to Deane’s death on August 6, 2014, three days after he was beaten. Stewart is also charged with perverting the course of justice, under allegations that she ordered that the cell where Deane was beaten be cleaned before the arrival of INDECOM investigators.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com