The inquest into the death of former Pakistan coach and England all-rounder, Bob Woolmer, opened on Tuesday at the Jamaica Conference Centre on the waterfront in Downtown, Kingston.

Day one was highlighted by Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry’s aggressive examination of British pathologist Dr Nathaniel Carey, who, along with Professor Lorna Martin of Cape Town, South Africa and Dr Michael Pollenan of Ontario, Canada, had poured cold water on an earlier finding by Dr Ere Seshiah, local consultant pathologist, that Woolmer had died of asphyxiation due to manual strangulation.

The overseas pathologists were contacted by local authorities who thought it prudent to seek outside opinions.

Fourteen persons have so far given sworn testimony at the inquest, which is being held to establish if someone was criminally responsible for Woolmer’s death.

Woolmer was found dead in room 374 of the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on March 18, a day after his team lost to underdogs Ireland and crashed out of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

Seventy-three days later, Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas announced that the Jamaican police had closed their investigation as Woolmer died of natural causes.

Day 1

Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry started out gently with Dr Nathaniel Carey as he asked him to present his impressive list of qualifications in pathology minutes after he had finished taking his oath.

Carey seemed confident on the stand and boldly declared that he was not satisfied with the methods used by Dr Seshiah during the post mortem conducted on Woolmer’s body at the Kingston Public Hospital morgue in March.

Carey said Seshiah had erred in how he dissected Woolmer’s neck and left doubt as to whether or not the blood present was due to strangulation.

Carey said in his opinion Woolmer had died of heart complications and was not murdered. He told the court his findings were based upon images he viewed on seven compact discs.

“A person of that size would not go lightly,” Carey said.

“Suppose he was poisoned, could he have been subdued?,” Pantry shot back.

“Yes sir, Mr director,” Carey replied.

“Did your examinations and findings provide information of any poison in his urine?” Pantry asked.

Carey then made the revelation that he had made his findings without having all the information.

“No, I had no toxicology report to refer to,” Carey answered.

“Were you provided with any information that a straw-coloured liquid and a clear liquid had poison in them?” Pantry asked.

“No,” Carey said.

Sworn evidence was also given by hotel employees Bernice Robinson, a room attendant and Imogene Douglas, a waitress.

Douglas told the court that she delivered room service to Woolmer and saw two males in the room with him.

“One wore a Pakistan T-shirt and shorts and the other was wearing a suit. He looked like a white man. He was using a laptop,” Douglas told the court.

Robinson testified that she had gone to clean Woolmer’s room on the morning of March 18 at about 7:30 and when she opened the door she heard what sounded like snoring. Robinson said she locked the door and went to clean two other rooms before going back to Woolmer’s room an hour later.

She said she discovered that Woolmer was in the bathroom after noticing blood on a pillow, an unmade bed and an overturned wicker chair. Robinson said she then alerted her co-worker, who was cleaning rooms on the same floor, and hotel security was called in.

Day 2

Taking the witness stand for a second day running, Carey again cast doubt on the validity of the report he filed to the London Metropolitan police after back-tracking on his original pronouncement that Seshiah had erred by not removing Woolmer’s brain before dissecting the neck.

“I would say that is poor dissection technique,” Carey said.

But after Pantry presented video footage which showed Seshiah and his assistants removing Woolmer’s brain and slicing it up before dissecting his neck, Carey retracted his earlier statement.

“I made a mistake when I made my report that the neck was dissected before the brain was removed. I fully withdraw that,” Carey said.

But after watching how Seshiah dissected the coach’s neck, Carey maintained that the technique left a lot to be desired. He said the neck should have been drained and the chest organs removed before dissection took place.

He said the skin around the root of the neck should be cut for maximum exposure and the neck should be dissected a few muscles at a time, taking photographs each step of the way.

“None of these were done in this case,” Carey said.

Carey, however, admitted that although he was furnished with a toxicology report, he had not made any adjustments to his earlier findings which, he told the court, was not final but an advisory to Scotland Yard.

He told the court that he had received the toxicology report after he filed his advisory but said he made no adjustment because, “No one asked me to”.

He also said he knew very little about a poison called cypermethrin, when quizzed by Pantry.

Apart from the video footage, photos of the autopsy and the inside of Woolmer’s room were also shown in court.

Sworn testimony was also given by Jamaica Pegasus General Manager Eldon Bremmer, Hotel Manager Nancy McLean, and waitress Diedre Harvey.

Day two also saw British journalist Matheus Sanchez being dragged before the court after Pantry pointed out to coroner Patrick Murphy that Sanchez was suspected of recording courtroom proceedings and transmitting sound bytes back to his homeland via his Blackberry phone.

Sanchez’s phone and laptop were temporarily seized and perused by officers of the court.

The incident spurred RM Murphy to rule that no laptops would be allowed during the remainder of the inquest.

Day 3

Evidence pointing to suspicious use of an electronic key to gain access to a room opposite the one occupied by Woolmer in the days leading up to his demise highlighted day three of the inquest.

The room was occupied by Pakistan team physiotherapist Murray Stephenson.

Information systems and reservations manager for the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Loraine Tate, testified that Stephenson had requested a change of room on March 14 because he was being disturbed by a noise nuisance.

Tate said hotel computer records show that the key for room 375 had been used 10 times between March 16 and 17.

Reading from a computer-generated printout, Tate said:

“March 16, the guest key was used at 8:05 am, 12:22 pm, 2:02 pm, 5:47 pm and 8:29 pm.”

She said the following day the key was also used to gain access to the room a total of four times between 10:16 am and 8:46 pm.

Tate also testified that the key was the same one issued to Stephenson when he checked in and she was not sure if Stephenson had returned the key after he was transferred from 375.

Evidence was also given by Duty Manager Khori-Ann Robb, and volunteer nurse Novelette Robinson, who said she tried to administer chest compression when she saw Woolmer lying in the bathroom and saw that he was not breathing. She said Woolmer’s head was wedged between the bath and a dust bin and that there was blood and vomit at various points in the bathroom.

The court was told that Dr Asher Cooper was called to the scene and used his cellphone to take pictures of Woolmer’s body before removing it to the hallway and then calling an ambulance.

Day 4

Dr Asher Cooper testifies that he saw no sign of life when he examined Woolmer and in his professional opinion, Woolmer was lifeless before he arrived on the scene.

Cooper said he made several attempts to revive Woolmer, to no avail.

He said after he moved the body to a hallway in the bedroom, he administered CPR and checked for signs of life, but there was no sign of a pulse.

“I thought then that the patient was now dead,” Cooper said.

Cooper said he accompanied Woolmer’s body in an ambulance to the University Hospital of the West Indies where the body was carried to the Accident and Emergency Department of the hospital.

Dr Simone French, who works at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department, testified that the former England Test player was pronounced dead shortly after his body was brought to the hospital.

Dr French told the court that sections of Woolmer’s body had a bluish-purplish colour and hospital staff quickly hooked him up on the cardiac monitor but soon after he was pronounced dead.