MANCHESTER, Jamaica — An officer of the Integrity Commission told the court in Porus yesterday, that it would be “very difficult” for him to identify the person who assisted him as he took measurements of a house in Manchester over three years ago.

Richard Campbell, designated an expert witness by the court, was giving evidence in one of the country’s most high profile fraud cases involving some $400 million of public funds allegedly misappropriated from the Manchester Municipal Corporation.

Eight persons, including three former senior personnel of the Corporation, are on trial on charges related to an alleged conspiracy to defraud the then parish council of amounts of over $400 million.

Campbell told the court, presided over by Parish Judge Ann Marie Grainger, that he was a quantity surveyor and the manager of the Technical Service Department of the Integrity Commission which at the time (2016) was the Office of the Contractor General.

The witness said that after at least two previous attempts dating back to September 2016, on June 11, 2017, along with law enforcement operatives including members of the Financial Investigative Division, he was able to gain entry to a residence at Daley’s Grove in Manchester by way of a warrant.

His duties at the premises, he said, were to take measurements of all “visible structures of the dwelling” in his capacity of quantity surveyor. It was while he was engaged in this task that an individual assisted him in carrying out his measurements by way of opening a window in the basement of the premises. Questioned as to whether he would be able to recognise the person who helped him to open the window, Campbell after some thought shook his head and said “it would be very difficult”.

Campbell also testified that he checked the records of the parish council (now the Manchester Municipal Corporation) in respect to two properties to ascertain if there were architectural drawings for the buildings on these premises.

When asked by the prosecution to provide the Volume and Folio numbers in respect to the properties, the witness asked to see his report to refresh his memory. When he was shown the report, Campbell was unable on three occasions to accurately repeat the numbers to the court. Judge Grainger however told Campbell that he “need not get flustered” as the information was with the court.

Those before the court are former Municipal Corporation senior staffers Sanja Elliott, David Harris, and Kendale Roberts; Sanja Elliott’s wife Tasha Gay; his parents Edwardo and Myrtle Elliott, an employee of Sanja Elliott, Dwayne Sibblies and bank employee, Radcliffe McLean.

The trial continues in the Manchester Parish Court, Mandeville today.

Jonathan Morrison