UNEDITED footage captured by CVM Television cameraman Milton Reid, five minutes after he arrived at Braeton, at 4:55 am on March 14, 2001, to cover the killing of seven men by the police, showed that it was daybreak.

Prior to the viewing of the tape on Friday, Reid said that it was “very dark” when he arrived at Braeton at 4:55 am on March 14 and so he used the night light on the Sony DG cam digital video camera.

Michael Pryce, senior broadcast journalist at CVM, who spent four days in the witness box last week, testified that it was so dark when he got to Fifth Seal Way, where the youth were killed, that Reid had to turn on the night light on the camera.

Yesterday Maurice Saunders, the attorney representing the estate of Dane Whyte, one of the youth killed, asked Reid if he agreed that there was no more than 20 minutes of tape before the first interview.

Reid: Yes.

Saunders: And within those first 20 minutes, the unedited tape captured scenes of the sky?

Reid: I don’t remember.

Saunders: I am suggesting to you that in early scenes of the video there were clouds.

Reid said that he could not remember and Saunders requested Coroner Lorna Errar-Gayle to replay the tape.

The relevant section of the tape was played after lunch and Saunders then resumed cross-examination.

Saunders: You saw the sky?

Reid: Yes.

Saunders: How long after you arrived the tape shows what you just saw?

Reid: Five minutes.

Saunders: That was morning sky?

Reid: Yes.

Reid testified that he was at Braeton for three and a half to four hours and that the total footage filmed was about one eighth of the total time he spent there.

Reid also told the inquest that he was a friend of Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and that he (Reid and Pryce) had been on several operations with Adams and his team from the Crime Management Unit.

And attorney Roger Davis, representing the estate of Andre Virgo, another of the youth killed, showed Reid a Panasonic camcorder digital video camera, which he said was not as sophisticated as the Sony DG cam digital video camera, used by Reid at the Braeton assignment. Reid agreed with Davis that the Panasonic camcorder digital had a feature that recorded date, and time “down to a second”.

Davis: At the back of the Panasonic camera is a display button.

Reid: Yes.

Davis: What is the function of the display button. Would that button disable the time, date or whatever from the recorder?

Reid: Yes, Sir.

Davis: Similarly, on your camera, would the display button do the same?

Reid: No my camera don’t carry the date. My display button adjusts the time code and says how long the tape is running.

Reid, who was asked what purpose he would use “that adjustment for your time code on your camera”, said that they do not adjust time code as they only just reset it.

The CVM cameraman, who was asked to bring the camera he used on the March 14, 2001 assignment to court after lunch, said that it was being used on an overseas assignment. The station’s news manager, Milton Walker, who was in court, promised Coroner Errar-Gayle that a Sony DG cam digital video camera similar to the one Reid used on the Braeton assignment would be brought to court tomorrow.

Reid, who when questioned by Davis said that he did not have a problem “remembering things”, said that the Braeton event was “a long time ago”.

He told Davis that the police only allowed him to stay in the house at 1088 Fifth Seal Way to record footage, three to five minutes. “I was not allowed to stay long in there,” he said, adding that he did not know if the police placed the same restriction on Pryce.

Reid, who was also cross-examined by attorney Richard Rowe, representing the estate of Tamayo Wilson, said that on March 14 last year, the mike was only plugged into the camera for the interviews Pryce did with Superintendent Harry Daley, Adams and Superintendent Jevene Bent.