The prosecution’s first witness in the ongoing trial of the alleged Tesha Miller faction of the Klansman Gang has stoutly denied suggestions from the defence that he acted on “intel” received from popular vlogger Sir P during a 2023 operation which ended with a fatal killing.

The detective corporal, who was recalled to the stand in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Wednesday morning, had testified that on March 5, 2023 he had gone to premises in Spanish Town, St Catherine as part of a team from the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch (CTOC). Following a confrontation at those premises he shot and killed a man who challenged him. During that incident, a man, who is now the crown’s star witness (yet to be revealed) and another were taken into custody.

Defence attorneys have however launched a sustained attack on the detective corporal’s credibility, asserting among other things that he shot and killed that man in cold blood and planted a firearm on him. They further charged that he had fabricated evidence against the dead man and had also used unfair tactics to scare the crown witness who was also apprehended at that time into giving contrived evidence against the 25 defendants in the matter.

Wednesday morning when the matter resumed, the detective Corporal who was recalled to the stand for re-examination told the tribunal under questioning by defence attorneys Denise Hinson and Kymberli Whittaker that while he has listened to the vlogger his actions during that operation were not on the basis of information from the platform.

According to the attorneys, the cop, who was interviewed by the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) about the fatal shooting incident, had told the investigators that he got information about the man who was killed in that shooting and one other individual said to have ties to the gang from the platform.

The detective corporal, in responding to those suggestions, however asserted that he had listened to Sir P’ vlog Politricks Watch after the March 5 incident and not before.

“I have never acted on any information from Sir P,” the cop, who later went on to admit that he and colleagues would listen to Politricks Watch at work, said.

His later admission under further questioning that Sir P was “a source” of “some information” about a particular individual, but only after the March 5 incident, brought some amount of amusement to some of the defendants who were completely engrossed during the exchanges between various counsel and the witness.

The prosecution, in vigorously objecting to the line of questioning by the defence, warned that it bordered on “hearsay” and was “disingenuous” and “dangerous” as there was no evidence in the trial presently to support what the witness was being questioned on, and as such invited him to “speculate”.

Supreme Court Justice Dale Palmer, who is presiding over the judge alone matter, warned the defence against “conflating information or views expressed” as “Intel”, pointing out that the witness had told the court that what he heard from the vlogger was “not intel”.

– Alicia Dunkley-Willis