Constable Noel Maitland allegedly uttered the words “Jah Jah” when he was being arrested on July 27, 2022 by detectives investigating the July 12, 2022 disappearance of his social media influencer girlfriend, Donna-Lee Donaldson.

Maitland was subsequently charged with murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse in relation to Donaldson’s disappearance, for which he is currently on trial in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston.

“Jah Jah” is a popular lamentation among many Jamaicans depicting disillusionment at an action or development in a matter.

On Monday during the trial, a detective sergeant assigned to the special operations unit of the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime (C-TOC) branch, shared with the seven-member jury in the case details of Maitland’s arrest.

The detective sergeant said that on July 27, 2022, he was called by his superior who gave him certain instructions.

“I followed through with the instructions and proceeded to drive out in an unmarked service vehicle along with two other detectives to the law offices of TWP located on Duke Street in Kingston. I was let inside the building where I observed the accused man, who is the lone man in the dock today, having a conversation with his attorney Mr Christopher Townsend,” the policeman testified.

“Mr Townsend and I spoke and made an arrangement. After the conversation I walked Mr Noel Maitland through the front door of the office. I identified myself to him as well as the other team members. I arrested him formally for the offence of murder. I cautioned him and he replied, ‘Jah, Jah’,” the detective sergeant said.

He shared that he cautioned Maitland, telling him he was not obliged to say anything unless he wished to, but that whatever he said would be taken down in writing and used as evidence in a court of law.

“I searched his person and found nothing on him. As per my further instructions, I asked his father, who was in our presence, where his son’s cellphone was. He told me something and gave me a phone. His father said ‘Only the banger mi have’. The brand of the phone was BLU but the phone was green. I reminded Mr Maitland that he was still under caution and asked him whose phone it was and he responded saying ‘mine’.

“I then proceeded to the C-TOC base with the accused man, wrote up the phone on an attribution form, which is a form for any electronic device to be written up and submitted to the computer forensics and cybercrime division. I invited him to sign the attribution form. He declined,” the detective sergeant said.

He explained that the phone which he said he took from Maitland was packaged along with a form and handed to his sergeant for safe keeping. He said he then transported Maitland to the Grant’s Pen Police Station where he was handed over to be kept in custody.

“I also informed the investigators of the arrest of Constable Maitland and the seizure of the phone. August 9, 2022 I retrieved the same packaged cellphone and caused it to be submitted to the Communication, Forensics and Cybercrime Division (CFCD),” the policeman told the court.

He said CFCD accepted the phone, along with an attached report and the phone was assigned a case number.

During cross-examination which was brief, attorney Christopher Townsend asked the witness if Maitland actually said ‘Jah, Jah’ when he was being arrested.

The detective sergeant reiterated that Maitland said so; however, the attorney suggested to him that no such thing was said.

Townsend also suggested that Maitland did not tell him that the cellphone that was confiscated by detectives belonged to him.

Maitland could be seen in the prisoner’s dock shaking his head in apparent disagreement while the detective insisted that the constable told him the phone was his.