ATTORNEY Maurice Saunders alleged last Thursday at the coroner’s inquest into the Braeton killings that Janice Budd, a former newscaster at CVM Television, resigned from the station because of differences between herself and Michael Pryce over the editing and newscasting of film footage taped on March 14 last year at Braeton.

Following on objections raised by police attorneys, Saunders, who was cross-examining CVM cameraman Milton Reid, who taped the Braeton footage, did not ask him about Budd’s departure from the television station, even though Coroner Lorna Errar-Gayle did not rule that he could not be questioned about it.

Saunders represents Dayne Whyte, one of the seven youth killed by the police at Braeton on March 14, 2001. In cross-examining Reid, he established that the cameraman knew Budd when she worked at CVM and that she was no longer there. Saunders was about to ask another question when attorneys Carolyn Reid and Oswest Senior-Smith, appearing for the police, objected on the grounds that it was not relevant..

Saunders explained to the coroner, in the presence of the jury and after the cameraman had been asked to leave the courtroom, that he wanted to ask Reid if he knew that Budd had left and gone to RJR, as a result of alleged differences between Pryce and her over the editing and newcasting of the Braeton tape.

The coroner did not rule on the matter, but when Reid eventually returned to the witness stand, Saunders asked him no further questions about Budd.

And under cross-examination, Reid told Saunders that he thought Pryce’s interview with Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, head of the controversial Crime Management Unit that figured in the killings, was one of the most important events worth taping at Braeton last year March.

Saunders: I am suggesting to you that as a friend of Adams you wanted to make him look good for the news presentation.

Reid: No sir, it didn’t matter.

Saunders: You wanted Adams’ version to look like the genuine or true version?

Reid: I am not the one who decides whether Mr Adams’ story looks good or bad. I only take footage.

Saunders: But you had a part to play and didn’t you want Adams’ version to look true?

Reid: It did not matter to me.

Saunders: You did this by taping the things you think favoured Adams. You did it also by having the sounds on the tape distorted or muffled. Until the interview you did not put on the proper microphone.

Reid: No sir, I did not muffle the sound.

Saunders: You did it by taping Adams but refusing to tape what the crowd of people were saying.

Reid: This is not true.

Saunders: Persons called out and said ‘why you nuh put on the camera’, which was off.

Reid: That is not true, your honour.

Saunders: That’s why you went to Hartlands and did not go to the morgue at Spanish Town, to make Adams look good.

Reid: It is not true.

After a copy of the unedited footage captured by Reid at Braeton was again replayed Thursday, Reid told Saunders that he saw Adams and Assistant Commissioner of Police Jevene Bent move off by themselves and speak.

Reid said, however, that he did not hear her quarrelling or arguing with Adams. However, when that section of the tape was again replayed, Saunders asked that the coroner and finders of truth (jury) note Bent’s disposition and gestures during the conversation with Adams which, according to the lawyer made her appear “as if she was displeased”.

Reid was also cross-examined by attorney Veronica Phipps, representing the estate of Lancelot Clarke, another of the youth killed by the police.

Phipps: Before you got there, you knew what you wanted to capture?

Reid: Yes.

Phipps: Having got a call of a shoot-out you came to that conclusion on the way?

Reid: Yes.

Phipps: As an experienced and impartial cameraman, would it not have been better to form judgement as to what to film when you got there?

Reid: No.

Phipps: Your evidence is that you decided before you got to Braeton what you were going to film?

Reid: Yes.