Pusey may reject Kern recordings

With final submissions made on the controversial recordings supplied by Rodney Chin in the Cuban light-bulb case, it appears Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey is leaning towards rejecting the arguments made by the Office of the Director of public prosecutions (DPP).

The Crown had been arguing for the recordings to be admitted in court.

In a lengthy back and forth between DPP Paula Llewellyn and Pusey, it became apparent that the former had not adequately met the stipulation of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the recordings were not compromised by a malfunction on one of the phones.

Pusey, in her comments, said the prosecution did not have a mobile expert to testify whether a defect on one of the phones had an impact on the integrity of the recordings.

Earlier in the trial, Chin had testified that he transferred six recordings after the keypad of one of the Samsung phones stopped working.

However, Pusey said that throughout the arguments deposited for the admission of the recordings, it was not clear if this malfunction had an impact on the data.

Recordings not affected

Llewellyn argued that Detective Sergeant Patrick Linton, of the Organised Crime Investigation Division and the cybercrime unit, testified that when he examined the phone, while there was a malfunction, it did not appear as if it had affected the transfer of the recordings.

Pusey, however, shot back and said Linton did not forensically examine the phone and while previous case history had allowed for non-experts to submit their testimony in cases regarding such devices, the devices in those cases had not malfunctioned.

The recordings, which came to light during the trial, have been at the centre of a tug-o-war between the defence and prosecution.

Spencer and Wright are alleged to have benefited improperly from the implementation of the Cuban light-bulb programme.

Spencer, a former junior energy minister, is on nine fraud-related charges while Wright has been slapped with six.

Pusey is expected to rule on the recordings on March 15.