After five sittings spanning almost a month, presentation of evidence was completed yesterday at the hearing convened by the Independent Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel into the allegation that West Indies cricketer Andre Russell violated a whereabouts clause.

It is expected that proceedings will be completed on Thursday, November 17, the day on which final submissions are to be heard from each legal team.

The stenographer is expected to submit the transcript of the evidence provided throughout the hearing to both sides on or by Monday, October 24. The parties have also agreed that each side’s written submissions are to be filed by 4:00 pm on Monday, November 7.

Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), represented by attorney-at-law Lackston Robinson, is accusing Russell of failing to file his whereabouts on three occasions during a 12-month period. The alleged filing failures are for January 1, 2015, July 1, 2015, and July 25, 2015.

Queen’s Counsel Patrick Foster, who is the lead attorney representing the 28-year-old Jamaican Russell, has sought to dispel allegations of negligence on the cricketer’s part. Additionally, Foster questioned the basis of the last two purported filing failures, which both fall in the July to September quarter.

Yesterday’s sitting at Jamaica Conference Centre picked up from October 7, where Russell was being cross-examined by Robinson.

The JADCO lawyer reiterated that any athlete who is unable to update their whereabouts via JADCO’s website can visit the commission’s offices for direct assistance.

Asked by Robinson about his whereabouts from mid to late March 2015, Russell replied that in and around that time he would have been on West Indies duty at the ICC 50-over World Cup staged in New Zealand and Australia.

While explaining the challenges of updating his whereabouts, Russell appeared to make an impassioned plea for understanding. He explained that he normally gets help to submit his whereabouts and was not educated at any point on how to do it.

He continued that, as a professional cricketer who adheres to JADCO’s system, it was never his intention to “abandon” the process of filing whereabouts.

Russell also indicated that he felt that being a part of the international testing pool would negate any instance of him missing JADCO-organised tests.

In continuing his cross-examination, Robinson turned to evidence that Judith Lue, a travel agent, filed whereabouts for Russell, which indicated that the cricketer should be at his home in Jamaica from March 17-31, 2015.

But Russell said he had no recollection of receiving a call from JADCO, and that he could not recall being home on March 27, 2015.

Checks by the Jamaica Observer confirmed that the 2015 ICC World Cup ran from February 14 to March 29, 2015. West Indies, with Russell in the team, were eliminated by New Zealand on March 21 at the quarter-final stage.

While Robinson probed the circumstances surrounding the second filing failure, Russell, who admitted to understanding the first notice of filing failure in March, said he did not fully understand the notice of the second failure.

But Robinson was quick to challenge, arguing that the language used in the first and second failures was similar.

Robinson then shifted focus to the third filing failure. Russell said that after the second filing failure, he asked his manager/agent Will Quinn to assist in handling correspondence with JADCO.

Russell said Quinn told him to focus on cricket since he (Quinn) was now handling matters on his behalf. But Robinson suggested that Russell must have known about the contents of e-mail exchanges between Quinn and JADCO regarding an extension to allow time for filing his whereabouts.

Russell’s response was: “Yes, we discussed it.”

In response to whether he requested help upon receiving notice of the third filing failure, Russell told the JADCO lawyer “no”, but he added that he was “extremely confused” by the package addressed to his home on September 19 alleging the whereabouts violation. He said he thought that because he got the extension that Quinn had remedied the matter.

At the conclusion of Robinson’s cross-examination, Foster, who completed the examination-in-chief of Russell last Friday, briefly re-examined the respondent.

During re-examination, Russell indicated that he had an alternate e-mail address, at which point Foster sought to establish that JADCO had knowledge of that address.

Foster then called Lue to give testimony. She insisted that JADCO employee Tajae Smith walked her through the process “step by step, from beginning to end” of inputting whereabouts information on the commission’s website. She reiterated that Smith had to help her in that fashion because she was not familiar with the system.

While giving evidence on Friday, Smith said he merely provided guidance and not step by step assistance.

During Robinson’s cross-examination of Lue, he established that she works for a travel agency and frequently handles matters relating to the acquisition of travel visas and passports for regional cricketers. She said she helped Russell to file whereabouts on two occasions — on February 17, 2015 for the January to March quarter, and on April 1, 2015 for the April to June quarter. Despite a suggestion from Robinson to the contrary, she asserted that Smith helped her to input information on both occasions.

Foster opted not to re-examine her and, at approximately 3:00 pm, that signalled the end of the respondent’s case.

After the adjournment, Foster told journalists that all focus turns to presenting the closing submissions to the disciplinary panel, but he declined to provide details on the trail of evidence provided throughout the hearing.

“By then [November 17] the panel members would have got the submissions and we’ll expand on it and deal with all those issues arising. It would be unfair to be pontificating on the evidence at this point; we have written submissions to do, we will prepare them and provide them to the panel members and then you’ll hear,” he said.

He, however, conceded that JADCO’s allegation of Russell’s negligence as well as the respondent’s probe of the third alleged filing failure could be key points for the panel to consider.

“That [the question of negligence] is obviously one of the issues that the panel members will have to deal with because it was raised by JADCO. There are other issues that they have to deal with, some have come to the forefront already, especially in relation to the third alleged failure for the July to September quarter,” Foster said.

Robinson, as he has done throughout the hearing, declined comment after the adjournment.

Under World Anti-Doping Agency regulations three whereabouts filing failures amount to a failed test, which may attract a ban of up to 24 months.