A constable who said he transported two men, one fatally wounded, to hospital in 2017 following an alleged Klansman gang-linked shooting on Ripon Road in St Andrew, stood down suggestions from defence attorneys Thursday that his identification of the dead man had been rigged.

The constable, who was retaking the stand in the ongoing trial of 25 alleged members of the so-called Tesha Miller faction of the gang, was continuing his evidence about his actions at the scene where cab driver Kevin Green was murdered and another man shot in the shoulder the night of August 14, 2017.

That evidence is linked to counts five and six of the indictment which charges the accused Tesha Miller, Rolando Jermaine Hall and Michael Wildman with Green’s murder in one instance, and the wounding with intent of the other man.

When he appeared earlier in the trial, the cop had testified that he was the one to remove Green from the crashed Toyota Probox he had been driving when he was attacked. He said he drove the body to Kingston Public Hospital and also transported the man who was wounded in the same shooting. During that appearance, the lawman had been shown a printed photo by the Crown and asked to identify the person shown. He however said he could not be sure it was the same man he had transported.

After identifying several images from the scene, the cop was then shown a virtual photograph of an individual Thursday, and asked to say who the subject was, amidst much protest from the defence.

Attorney Denise Hinson, in raising the first objection, noted that it was an “unfair” second attempt by the Crown given that the witness had not been able to recognise Green from the first photograph shown to him earlier in the trial.

“For him to be given a second opportunity is manifestly unfair,” Hinson stated.

However, the assistant deputy director of public prosecutions eliciting the evidence insisted that it was “perfectly permissible”, adding that Hinson was the one on the first occasion to raise questions about the “quality” and “provenance” of that initial photo.

After trial judge Justice Dale Palmer ruled in favour of the Crown, the cop, after asking that the image be rotated on the screen, said, “It resembles Kevin Green that I escorted to the Kingston Public Hospital the night of the incident, [who] was pronounced dead.”

During cross-examination, the constable came in for further pressure from Hinson, who pressed him as to how he was able to distinguish one dead person from another given that he had seen “multiple deceased persons” over the course of his duties and nine years have passed since the particular incident.

“Do you agree that there is nothing unique about the features of the person you identified as Kevin Green?” Hinson wanted to know.

“Seeing the photos I could recognise him,” the lawman responded, adding that he still remembered the image despite the passage of years.

The attorney, in pivoting, then suggested that the cop had been primed to identify the photograph, stating, “Your purpose here today was to give evidence in relation to this incident… and you expected to identify the person you called Kevin Green?”

In denying that he had been tipped off, the constable told her that the reason he was able to identify Green from the photo shown on the screen on Thursday was that the one shown on the previous occasion was “black and white”.

Hinson further challenged the lawman as to the integrity of his recall after he admitted that he did not remember “clearly” the features of the injured man whom he had transported along with Green to the hospital. According to the cop, he had seen that man only briefly but “spent more time around the dead man” who was in the cordoned area at the crime scene and with the doctors while they tried to “ascertain information about him”.

“I am suggesting to you that your recognition of the image is because you knew you were going to be shown an image of someone who is purported to be the deceased Kevin Green,” Hinson told the cop.

“Your suggestion is wrong,” the constable retorted.

When Hinson told him he was “honest the first time” when he admitted he did not recognise the individual in the printed photo, the cop replied, “I am honest all the time.”

In further cross-examination, defence attorney Paul Gentles drilled the cop over his use of the words “It resembles Kevin Green”, charging that this meant he was not definite about the appearance of the man he was asked to identify.

“It is him,” the cop responded before going on to say “It is the person” several questions later.

Asked by Gentles if he had consulted with the Crown or anyone else prior to taking the stand, the lawman said, “No.”

“I am going to suggest to you that you were well-briefed as to why you are coming here this morning,” Gentles insisted.

“Your suggestion is wrong,” the cop said.

“Your sole purpose of coming here this morning was to identify any photograph shown to you as being that of Kevin Green,” Gentles, who later accused the cop of being a “witness of the highest dishonesty”, pressed.

“I had no knowledge,” the cop replied.

Last month a detective sergeant who was the lead investigator for the shooting which took place just outside the infamous Palais Royal guest house, in taking the stand for the first time during the trial, created the link between the body taken from the scene and the one lying in the morgue. This after both the constable and a forensic scene of crime investigator had told the court that they were not able to establish who the dead man was. He said during his visit to the morgue, he had in his possession “a Jamaican driver’s licence with a photograph and the name Kevin Omar Green”, which had been handed to him at the murder scene by the cop who was the first responder, and from which he was able to verify who the dead man was. Additionally, he said he attended the post-mortem for Green in September 2017 where he introduced the identifying person to the doctor who was to conduct the post-mortem. He said following the post-mortem he collected a statement from the individual who identified the body.

The matter resumes on Monday in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.