THE Court was yesterday unable to listen to the recording of a conversation about the May 7, 2003 Crawle shooting between Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and police control because of a malfunctioning recorder.

Trial judge, Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, however, requested that the police bring a new machine to court today so that the tape can be played.

Adams and five members of the disbanded Crime Management Unit are facing murder charges for the murder of four people, including two women in the Clarendon district of Crawle on May 7, 2003.

Corporal Clinton Ricketts of the police telecommunications division at Elletson Road in Kingston, testified yesterday that on June 16, 2003, he was requested to retrieve certain tapes of conversations of Adams on the Crawle incident.

He told the court that tape recordings were made of some police radio transmissions to police control by Dictaphone, which interfaces with the network and transmissions are automatically taped and then stored.

Ricketts said he retrieved the tape, did a search and found the specific recording on the Area 5 circuit, made copies, put them in a sealed bag, then sign his name and handed it to his commanding officer, Deputy Superintendent Anderson.

Under cross-examination from attorneys Errol Gentles and Gladstone Wilson, Ricketts said the CMU has its own radio channel, but when he checked that channel he found no recording of Adams’ conversation.

Technical operator Sergeant Granville Williams, sub-officer at the telecommunications division, told the court that on August 27, 2003 he received a certain request, took a Dictaphone cassette from a sealed exhibit bag and placed it in a Dictaphone recorder.

Williams told the court that he was “searching for information relating to SSP Adams calling control, informing (them) that a 9mm Taurus pistol was found at the scene.

Williams said he went to the Dictaphone recording machine, put in the date and time and the information found on the Area 5 circuit, which is 26 on the Dictaphone.

Williams said he was requested to do a full transcript of the incident and showed 15 copies and one original of the transcripts to the court.

The prosecution received the court’s permission to play the tapes of Adams’ conversation with police control and began to play a copy of the original tape but it was inaudible.

Defence lawyers, however, objected to the playing of a copy of the original tape, submitting that the tape presented was an edited version of the Dictaphone cassette and requested the original Dictaphone cassette be played.

-whytetk@jamaicaobserver.com