Lawyer brands expert phone witness as clueless
The prosecution’s expert witness who is giving evidence about the data including the secret recordings of alleged members of the Clansman- One Don Gang contained on three cellphones was yesterday accused of being clueless by senior defence lawyer Lloyd McFarlane.
“The witness is doing things that are telling us that he has no clue about what he is doing,” said the lead counsel for alleged gang leader Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan.
Blackman along with 32 other alleged gang members are being tried on an indictment with 25 counts under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act and the Firearms Act in the Home Circuit Court.
McFarlane made the unflattering remark after the digital forensic examiner fumbled while trying to respond to a question pertaining to whether a call that was captured in his extraction report was an incoming or outgoing call on day two of his evidence-in-chief.
The expert witness, a police corporal, who had analysed the phones’ data, when asked by the prosecutor if the call in question was an outgoing call replied by saying, “It appears so.”
His uncertain response which has been the norm since the start of his testimony, however, did not sit well with Chief Justice Bryan Sykes who told him that he did not know what he means by it appears so.
The expert witness in reply explained that he was unsure about whether the number was in fact an incoming number as it had the same number as the receiving number.
When asked further if he could definitively say if the number had made the call at the time that was given, the witness said it was likely.
The judge, however, told him that he was the one who should be solving “that great mystery” as he is the person who was brought before the court with the expertise.
“At the end of the day, the lawyers want to know whether they must waste their time asking questions or they say OK it doesn’t make sense to ask this man any question, that is ultimately part and parcel… it’s not a matter of being difficult,” the judge said.
“We want to be clear about what you are saying..” he added.
The witness who did not appear to have a sound grasp of the information he was sharing, however, completed his evidence yesterday afternoon on the data, which was extracted from the phones.
One of the prosecution’s star witnesses, a former top-tier gang member, had testified that he had secretly recorded conversations that he had with alleged members of the gang on the three phones and handed them over to the police.
According to him, he had used a call recording app that he had downloaded on the phone. But the expert witness told the court that based on the data that was captured on the phone; the call recording application was purchased.
He was, however, unable to say when the application was installed as that information was also not captured.
The witness also told the court that he could not say what were the features of the application because he did not physically examine the phones.
Two witnesses from the two main telecommunication providers are expected to give evidence today.