WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — The defence team for the three cops charged with the 2014 incident in which Mario Deane was fatally beaten while in police custody, is expected to wrap up their cross-examination of the Crown’s eighth witness on Wednesday.

The three accused are District Constable Marlon Grant, Corporal Elaine Stewart, and Constable Juliana Clevon, who are all charged with manslaughter and misconduct in a public office.

On Tuesday, the Crown presented the defence with documents pertaining to the case during the trial in the Westmoreland Circuit Court.

Martin Thomas, who is representing Stewart and Grant, and Dalton Reid, who is representing Clevon, told the presiding judge, Justice Courtney Daye that they needed time to peruse the documents, which will form part of their cross-examination before closing their cross-examination of the witness.

The Crown will then undertake a re-examination of the witness before calling another.

During the questioning of the witnesses by the defence on Tuesday, several inconsistencies with statements he gave The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) on August 11, 2014 and the court were pointed out.

The allegations in the case are that Deane was arrested for possession of a ganja spliff and placed in custody, where he was brutally beaten on August 3, 2014. He sustained severe injuries to his brain, which left him in a coma. He died three days later at Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James.

It is alleged that the three cops were on duty at the police station when Deane was beaten. It is further alleged that Stewart, who has an additional charge of perverting the course of justice, instructed that the cell in which the attack took place be cleaned before the arrival of investigators from the Independent Commission of Investigations.

— Anthony Lewis