THE Crawle murder trial adjourned early yesterday after defence attorneys objected to the testimony of Cable & Wireless systems administrator, Howard Mais, on the grounds that there was no basis for him to give evidence about a mobile telephone number, because it was not properly before the court.

Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe upheld the objection and adjourned the court shortly after the lunch break, giving the prosecution time to produce relevant witnesses on Monday.

There have been several bits of testimony so far in the case about cell phone conversations, but, as yet, there have been no fulsome evidence on what has been said in these calls. In all cases only one side of the conversation was heard.

Yesterday, it was expected that Mais would provide more specific information on calls to and from a phone number that he had been asked to provide data for on May 7, 2003 – the day that Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and five other cops were accused of murdering four people, including two women, in Crawle, Clarendon.

Mais, who received the request from C&W’s security chief a year after the incident, told the court that he extracted the information from the computer in the company’s archives which was recorded on tape.

But before he could go on, Mais was stopped by an objection from defence attorney Jacqueline Samuels-Brown. She submitted that section 31 (9) of the Evidence Act was not complied because the prosecution had not laid the relevant ground to allow the witness to testify about the telephone number. She pointed out that no previous witness had testified about the particular telephone number.

Crown Counsel David Fraser submitted that the number was relevant “based on proof of evidence to come”.

Wolfe, however, upheld the objection.

Said the Chief Justice: “I don’t know why we keep putting the cart before the horse. You have to line up your witnesses properly. In the interest of justice it is necessary to put his testimony on hold. I do it that way. I do not want to have to present it to the jury and in summing up to (have to) tell them to disregard it.”

The other telephone-related witnesses, Earl Smith and Richard McFarlane as well as Mais, were bound over to return on Monday.

Earlier in the proceeding, Joseph Dill, 88, pastor of the First Holiness Church of the Apostolic Faith in Crawle, testified that about 6:00 pm on May 7, 2003 he had gone visiting a member of his congregation in the town and had walked past the house where the killings occurred. A short distance past the house, Dillon said he heard explosions coming from the house.

He went on his way and stopped at Isolyn Stoddart home for about 10 minutes. But on returning, he said he stopped at the home of another member of his congregation, Uda Feron, for about five minutes when he heard more explosions coming from the same house from which he had heard the earlier ones.

Under cross-examination from Valerie Neita-Robinson, Dillion said he knew “definitely where the explosions were coming from. It came direct from the house where I heard the first explosion.”

Adrian Feron alias “Pucksie”, who he was at the death house on the evening of the shooting. He had stopped there, Feron said, at about 5:00 pm.

Among the persons who were there, according to Feron, was Bashington Douglas, the wanted man, who Adams and his team said they went in search of when they allegedly came under fire.

According to Feron, he was leaning on the kitchen window when the bus with the policemen pulled up.

“The door pull so fast,” he said. “As it stop is a man me see jump out with a long gun and point it at me. And me start run to de bush to the gully. When me deh deh, bare shot firing at me and me jump over the gully bank and ring me foot. Bare shot still a fire at me.”

He said he stayed in the bushes for about 45 minutes before being able to leave for his home. Feron said he never saw anyone with guns at the home.

Under cross-examination, Feron admitted that in his first statement to the police he had claimed not to have seen Douglas, also called Shortman and Chen Chen, at the house.

He told the court that he never saw Douglas with a gun. “I don’t know if he has any. I never see him with any.”

Another witness, Constable Loraine Granston of the BSI told the court that on October 2002, while stationed at the CMU, she was instructed by Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams to sign the firearm register as the person issuing an M16 rifle serial number A0044726 to Constable Shane Lyons which he had with him.

Granston said although she did not issue the gun to Lyons, she complied with Adams’ instructions.

She said her duties were purely clerical at the time.

Last week, police forensic analyst Daniel Wray testified that fragments found at Crawle matched ammunition fired from the same M16 rifle which Lyons had.

Indications are that Lyons had the gun since October 2002 and had not returned it.