THE murder trial of six policemen in the Home Circuit Court stalled on Wednesday as the witness, a superintendent of police — who began giving evidence in the matter on Tuesday — was a no-show.

The court learned through prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke that the witness previously indicated that he would have difficulty attending court on particular days.

“He did say Wednesdays and Fridays are very bad for him. He has a meeting with the commissioner [of police on those days],” Pyke told trial judge Sonia Betram-Linton, as she explained that, based on communication she received, the witness was of the impression that he was to be at court for 2:00 pm instead of 10:00 am.

In response, Bertram-Linton said, “What that means is that we will have to adjourn because him getting here at that time is not going to make much of a difference in terms of what we are going to be able to do. The court has to sit until 3:00 pm. If he comes at 2:00 pm and we get around and do what we have to do, it makes no sense to have you sitting here for the whole day for just 15 to 20 minutes of evidence.”

Pyke sought to assure Bertram-Linton that when the matter resumes, she will be ready to continue her cross-examination of the superintendent, who is an expert in ballistics.

“I am asking the registrar to tell him to be here for Friday. If there is a difficulty, I am sure he will tell her and she will advise. I am planning on him being here,” Pyke said.

Just in case the superintendent is a no-show again on Friday, Pyke said, “We have documents that we can read as well, so the time will be well-taken. We have DNA and biology and serology reports.”

The judge then pointed out that defence attorney Hugh Wildman had indicated that he has a problem sitting in the matter on Thursday.

“It means that we won’t sit Thursday. That’s a nice day for [jurors] to get some business done and so I am proposing we come back on Friday,” Bertram-Linton said before giving the jurors the usual warning.

“As you know, you are not to discuss the issues of this case with anyone at all and if anyone approaches you, you are not to entertain them at all. I release you for today and we adjourn until Friday morning at 10:00 am,” said Bertram-Linton.

On trial for murder are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, along with 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.

They are on trial in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer on Acadia Drive in St Andrew.

The men were killed in an alleged shoot-out with cops. It is alleged that the police signalled the driver of a blue Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle to stop, but he was initially hesitant to comply with the request. Further allegations are that when the driver finally stopped the car, men alighted from the vehicle to challenge the police in a gun battle, during which Lee, Allen and Dyer were fatally shot.

On Tuesday, the forensic ballistics expert shared with the court some of the methods used to determine if a specific gun was fired.

He also told the court during his testimony that all firearms procured by the Jamaica Constabulary Force and some by Jamaica Defence Force are test-fired to capture the ballistics footprint of each weapon.

He explained that a computerised system is used to make comparisons and determine matches.

“The system suggests potential matches with those submitted images and images from previous scenes. I then would analyse those images to determine if any of those suggested matches were in fact a confirmed match, so essentially I use the system to help to determine whether mainly spent casing from crime scene are connected to, or discharged from, the same firearm,” the witness explained.

“Inside the firearms have microscopic imperfections. When a firearm is being manufactured, the tool has microscopic imperfections that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The machine shaves off metal while manufacturing the tool. Each tool will get imparted with random microscopic markings. The imperfections on every component manufactured would be unique or specific, therefore no two firearms will have the same imperfections. Those marks are referred to as the ballistics fingerprint,” the ballistics expert added.