KINGSTON, Jamaica — Attorney-at-law, Hugh Wildman, referenced lyrics from Bob Marley’s song Small Axe on Monday, to encapsulate his views on prosecutor Kathy Ann Pyke’s recent meeting with two witnesses in the Home Circuit Court murder trial of six policemen.

The meeting took place in a room adjoining the court roughly two weeks ago, while the trial was already in train. According to Wildman, the actions of the prosecutor who is being accused by the attorney of having the statement of one witness sprawled out in front of that witness as well as another witness around a table, was wrong.

Last week, Wildman made a submission to trial Judge Sonia Bertram Linton to possibly have the evidence of the most recent witness in the case thrown out completely, describing it as tainted. He cited a number of authorities under law, which Pyke responded to on Friday with her own set of authorities on the issue.

On Monday however, Wildman sought to rubbish Pyke’s response.

“Two or more witnesses may never be interviewed together. The statement of one witness should not be shown to another. That is exactly what happened here. No mention should be made of the evidence of any other witnesses. Contradictions included, should not be revealed.

“This pretrial case [cited by Pyke] is reinforcing the point I am making. You can’t do that in pre-trial stage and this was not a pre-trial situation. This is a trial. We are having a trial. What we are alleging here is that Miss Pyke took the witness at her request to the room right beside the courtroom and had a discussion with statement in front of the witness and herself and another witness. All of her cases [cited] are redundant,” Wildman told the judge, appearing to capture the full attention of the seven members of the jury in the matter.

While the witness was being cross-examined by Wildman last, he asked her what the meeting was all about and she explained that Pyke was simply preparing her witness. She told Wildman that in the presence of the other witness, she went over her entire statement with Pyke. She said she asked Pyke what she should do if during her testimony, she didn’t remember aspects of what she said happened in the incident involving the six policemen. The incident occurred in 2013. She told the court that Pyke advised her that all she had to do was request to review her statement.

At one point on Monday, Pyke jumped to her feet to raise an objection to Wildman’s arguments. Pyke appealed to the judge to keep Wildman in line in regards to his response.

“Counsel Mr Wildman needs to stick to the evidence and certainly the witness never spoke to anything referring to coaching taking place. I hear him referring to it and he needs to stick to the evidence from the witness in regards to what took place. He is not speaking in terms of the evidence of the witness as to what was said and anything that took place which could be described as coaching.”

In response, Wildman said, “The witness started off by saying that Miss Pyke was preparing her as to how to answer the question. Are you afraid of your own evidence?”

That prompted Pyke to jump to her feet again, to defend her actions.

“Nothing like that my lady. There is no evidence that the witness said that she was being told how to answer the questions. She said [she was told] likely questions and she said the first thing she did was to explain that it has been 13 years, so what was she to do if she didn’t remember and she said she was told that she could ask to see her statement if she didn’t remember everything.

“There is no evidence that the witness ever said she was told how to answer questions or what questions to answer. In fact, she told counsel that the meeting didn’t go very far because he came in and made a scene. Counsel is filling in his own assumptions or what he would wish for you to believe without having any evidence and counsel must stop it,” Pyke said.

Wildman quipped back, “You should stop what you are doing.”

“Without more, the very fact of the meeting is improper and Miss Pyke can be brought to the disciplinary body of the General Legal Council for that. Up to now the witness has not given any evidence as to how long that meeting lasted when she was pressed. She has not given any time frame,” Wildman said.

The attorney added that it would not be correct for Pyke to state that the cases cited by the defence team were decided under English procedural rules.

“That was her submission and you should not place any reliance on these cases. These cases were decided under the common law of England which is the common law of Jamaica. There are no procedural rules in England for those cases. It is the law of the land which is applicable to Jamaica, the common law. That is a kite being flown. These are common law principles which say that the witnesses ought not to be brought to any conference while the case is going on because that is a form of coaching and coaching is prohibited under the common law of England and the common law of Jamaica.

“We established that. We say that the case of the Cayman Islands was dealing with a case that had to do with pretrial review. To use the Jamaican situation, if you had a conference at the DPP’s (director of public prosecution) office long before the trial, where you have case management and anything that emerges out of case management that is contradictory, it should be disclosed to the defence. Case management pre-trial should take place before. We are saying that that is not what obtains here. Even in the context of pre-trial review cases, all of them make the point that you should not have two witnesses in the same room and witnesses should not be seeing each other’s statements.

Wildman said the situation is even more damning in this case because in none of those cases [cited by the Pyke] did a prosecutor conduct a similar “sort of conference”.

“That is a more egregious situation. The prosecutor is caught in the act. In flagrante delicto, which is Latin. Right away, we know that the Cayman case is inapplicable because we are saying that the witness was not being interviewed at the Director of Public Prosecution’s office in a pre-trial review situation. The witness we say was being coached with the statement in front of her. You cannot come to cite this Cayman case as justification because it is not relevant like the other cases.

“You cannot interview or coach a witness while proceedings are in train. She was about the fifth witness. How can you say that it was a pre-trial interview? Even if it was a pre-trial interview, it couldn’t be done at the courthouse. It would have to be done at the DPP’s office. It cannot be done at the courthouse and the witness is to come and give evidence same time.”

The six policemen are on trial in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer.

On trial are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton and Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch. Corporal Fullerton is also charged with making a false statement to the Independent Commission of Investigations.

The trial continues on Tuesday.