Maitland trial in limbo as Crown seeks green light for witnesses to testify from overseas

The prosecution is to decide whether it will proceed with the trial of Constable Noel Maitland, following the outcome of three applications to allow witnesses to testify from overseas.

The special measures applications for the court's permission are to be made tomorrow.

Maitland, who is charged with the murder of his girlfriend Donna-Lee Donaldson, was scheduled to stand trial today in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.

However, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Claudette Thompson informed the judge that the Crown wishes to make the applications before proceeding, as the decision will inform whether the trial can start.

She told the court that the case rests squarely on circumstantial evidence, and that every witness’s evidence carries the same weight.

The defence, which had already been served with documents related to the applications, requested more time to respond and asked for the applications to be made tomorrow.

Maitland, who has been in custody since July 27, 2022, was further remanded by Justice Leighton Pusey.

He is charged with murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse.

He has denied the allegations.

Donaldson, a 24-year-old social media influencer, went missing on July 13, 2022, after she was last seen at Maitland's home two days earlier.

Prosecutors have disclosed that forensic analysis established that bloodstains reportedly found on curtains and on a pair of sneakers inside Maitland's Chelsea Manor, St Andrew, apartment were from the missing woman.

The court also heard that on July 13, the constable allegedly took a sofa to a car wash to be cleaned, claiming his cousin had injured himself and had messed up the furniture.

According to an attendant who assisted Maitland, the couch had alarming volumes of blood.

"A whole heap o' blood coming out the right side... Jesus, this man must dead. Him bleed out or this come in like dem kill somebody inna this," the attendant is alleged to have remarked.

Maitland had reportedly hired a truck driver to transport the couch and had also reportedly tried to trick his landlord into deleting closed-circuit television footage at his apartment.

The prosecutor had further revealed that a cell site analysis showed that Donaldson's mobile phone was last located on the network on July 12 in the vicinity of Maitland's apartment, and that Maitland's cell phone was in the same location at the same time.

Attorneys-at-law Christopher Townsend, Chadwick Berry, Sanjay Smith, and Kaysian Kennedy Sherman are representing Maitland.

- Tanesha Mundle

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