WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — Mercia Fraser, the mother of Mario Deane, the construction worker who was fatally beaten while in police custody, is

expected to retake the stand Friday in the Westmoreland Circuit Court.

She was scheduled to testify this afternoon but a decision was taken after the lunch break to push it back until Friday.

Fraser was among two people that the Crown was expected to call to the stand today. The other is an individual who had taken a swab of Fraser’s mouth.

Three cops are currently on trial for Deane’s death.

The three accused are Corporal Elaine Stewart, district constables Marlon Grant and Juliana Clevon, all of whom are charged with manslaughter and

misconduct in a public office.

Meanwhile, the defence lawyers representing the three cops completed their cross-examination of the Crown’s eighth witness who was on the stand from

last week.

During cross-examination, the witness was shown images and a video from the Barnett Street Police Station where the incident took place.

Martin Thomas, the lawyer representing Stewart and Grant, later attempted to have the images entered into evidence but this was ruled against by the

presiding judge, Justice Courtney Daye on the basis that it did not fall within the principles of the 1976 R v Peter Blake appeal case.

Meanwhile , Dalton Reid, the lawyer representing Clevon, told the witness that while he had stated in his testimony last week that Clevon came to him and

asked that he say nothing to investigators from the Independent Commission of Investigations, Clevon was not present as she had left with the ambulance

and did not return.

However, in a clash with the lawyer, the witness insisted that Clevon had returned.

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