MARIO DEANE TRIAL
Defence lawyers condemn prosecution witness as a liar
Published:Tuesday | May 20, 2025 | 12:10 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The defence attorneys for the three police personnel in the Mario Deane trial yesterday declared that an inmate who had testified for the prosecution was a liar with a personal agenda, while delivering their closing arguments before the Westmoreland Circuit Court.
Attorney Martyn Thomas, who is representing Corporal Elaine Stewart and Constable Marlon Grant, and attorney Dalton Reid, the lawyer for Constable Juliana Clevon, both condemned the inmate as untruthful and inconsistent in his earlier trial testimony. The witness had testified that he saw the defendants abusing Deane while he was in custody at the St James-based Barnett Street Police Station on August 3, 2014, the day he was brutally beaten in one of the lock-up’s cells.
Thomas said that the inmate’s account of the events at the Barnett Street facility contradicted a statement that he gave to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) shortly after the incident.
“The boy is a liar, a pathological liar. He lies on the spot, he lies when it suits him, and he lies when you catch him in a lie. You have to look closely at the evidence to see that he is not speaking the truth,” said Thomas. “When the lies start to come out, INDECOM starts to become a problem, and they are writing things he did not say. Having listened to what this witness has to say – how INDECOM moves from being his beloved INDECOM to the people who write what he does not say – this cannot be the witness who you rely on.”
Reid painted the witness as an opportunist who did not give a statement about Deane’s beating until August 11, 2014, eight days after the incident.
“The incident was August 3, and the witness said nothing. August 4, he said nothing. August 11, he gave a statement. What are you to make of it?” Reid addressed the seven-member jury. “Clearly, he wanted to leave the facility, because he had a big problem. He would have hurt everybody in here to save his own soul.”
Additionally, Reid called into question the competence of Mollie Plummer, the senior INDECOM investigator in the case at the time when Deane was beaten and later died on August 6, 2014, citing her repeated requests to reference her notes in the case during her evidence-in-chief and cross-examination.
“ ... You do not become a senior investigator if you do not know how to do your work. Every time, she asked to refresh herself from her notes…but that file is presumably up at INDECOM,” said Reid. “A senior investigator would have the file, and that file would follow her. She knew the case had started, and if she wanted to produce the notes, she would have done so.”
The trial continues today, with presiding High Court Justice Courtney Daye expected to start his summation.
All three police personnel are charged with manslaughter and misconduct in a public office. Stewart is additionally charged with perverting the course of justice.