‘Not spending Christmas in here’, judge tells jurors in cops’ murder trial

Judge Sonia Bertram-Linton indicated on Wednesday that she has no intention of sitting in the Home Circuit Court murder trial of six cops until December, hinting to the seven members of the jury that she believes the matter has been dragging on for too long. The trial began in January, and nine months later, those involved in the case have no clue when it will end. “We are trying as much as possible to use important commitments to allow people to be able to do what they have to do,” Bertram-Linton said.

However, she added, “We don’t want to see Christmas here.” The trial of the six policemen resumed on Wednesday after a lengthy break, with a former assistant investigator of the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) beginning and completing his testimony in the case. All five cops are on trial in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer and Mark Allen on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew, during an alleged shoot-out with the police. The former Indecom employee told the court that he joined Indecom in April 2014, more than a year after the incident, and was given tasks to carry out in relation to the investigation into the shooting deaths of the three men.

“I mainly assisted with investigations, attended to tasks assigned by my supervisor including the recording of witness statements, extraction of station diary entries and other tasks during the investigative process,“ he said, explaining that he conducted interviews, extracted diary entries from the Constant Spring Police Station and recorded interview information. He also photographed the diary entries related to the case, before he returned to his office at Indecom. Asked by prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke to explain the next step after photographs of diary entries are taken, he said that the pictures are usually printed and attached to case files for future viewing by investigators and people being interviewed.

He was also asked if he was recently shown the photographs of the diary entry and he said yes. According to the witness, an investigator connected to the case visited him and showed him the photographs, which he indicated co…