ATTORNEY-AT-LAW Christopher Townsend on Wednesday implored members of a seven-member jury, in the Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald murder trial, to disregard audio recordings which were allegedly taped by Denvalyn “Bubbla” Minott, the star witness in the case.

Insisting that the audio files which implicate his client were fabricated, Townsend said it is hard for the jury to accept that Minott was the maker of the recordings, which prosecutors are relying on heavily to secure a conviction.

McDonald is on trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston for the murder of his second wife, Tonia McDonald.

Oscar Barnes, who is accused of murdering the woman by stabbing her repeatedly and cutting her throat, is also on trial with McDonald.

It is alleged that McDonald hired Minott for $3 million to kill Tonia, but Minott sub-contracted the hit to Barnes and claimed that he only watched as the man he hired carried out the killing on the main road in Sherwood Forest, Portland, on the night of July 20, 2020.

Townsend, in court Wednesday, further pointed out that it is difficult to trust Minott’s evidence about the recordings, given that he told the court that one day he was going through his phone and came up on a mysterious audio file which allegedly turned out to be a recording of a call he earlier had with McDonald. He told the jury and Presiding Judge Chester Stamp that he then continued to record more than 120 phone calls between himself and the Portland businessman.

Townsend also said that Minott and other witnesses, including a former employee of McDonald, had a lot to gain by tell lies during their testimonies in the case.

“The man who they said did the recordings can’t read and can’t spell. He was just lying, lying, lying suh till. All witnesses have something to gain by coming here and lying. The Crown’s case has fallen; you are now seeing the mere bones. You are now seeing it for what it is since I have taken off the make-up,” Townsend told the jury.

“A very potent piece of evidence for the Crown is what you heard in the recordings. Mr McDonald categorically stated that he did not have any conversation with Bubbla. You must satisfy yourselves that it is authentic before you can believe it to be true. It must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is so. The Crown has failed miserably. They were in a hurry to get you to listen to the recordings but the authenticity is questionable in the highest order. No other witness has come here and told more lies than Bubbla,” Townsend said.

At the same time Courtney Rowe, another one of McDonald’s five lawyers, said that during Minott’s evidence in court he told the jury that McDonald took away his personal phone leading up to the murder, and began supplying him with different devices and SIM cards.

“These phones and SIM cards, according Minott, were taken away by McDoanld and replaced with different ones on numerous occasions. But the data presented in court by the police, who claimed he obtained it from the telecommunications provider, had Minott’s name as the owner and user of the particular phone numbers,” Rowe told the court Wednesday.

Rowe insisted that it was impossible for that to happen as Minott gave evidence that he was always provided with phones and that he purchased none of them for himself. Therefore, there would have been no record of his name being listed as the user of those particular numbers.

He also pointed out that Minott cannot be trusted because he claimed that he was supplied with different phones by McDonald, however, the records presented in court showed that there was only one International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) Number associated with all the calls he claimed he placed to and received from McDonald. Rowe said Minott was outright lying because every phone carries a unique IMEI number.

Townsend, meanwhile, pointed out that, “data can be manipulated, as shown here. Bubbla said Mr Mac took his phone and that he did not have a phone for himself. There was no way the phone and SIM card could have Bubbla’s name in subscriber details. Is it the phone that was purchased after the death that was used to make those recordings? They are saying the recording was made before the death but we can’t match up the evidence with what we see.”

The trial resumes on Friday when attorneys representing Oscar Barnes will begin closing arguments on his behalf.