There was no sitting of the murder trial of six cops in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston on Thursday as lead prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke requested a break to reportedly get her affairs in order.

The trial was scheduled to continue with a new witness on Thursday after an investigator from the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) was released from the witness stand on Wednesday.

Before the adjournment on Wednesday, defence attorney Hugh Wildman told trial Judge Sonia Bertram-Linton that he needed some time on Thursday morning to attend to a matter at the Corporate Area Parish Court as the judge in that matter was adamant that no further excuses for absence would be deemed acceptable.

Wildman’s stated intention was to attend court in Half-Way-Tree for about one hour, then return to the Home Circuit Court where he represents four of the six cops in the murder trial.

Bertram-Linton granted Wildman’s request, triggering protest from prosecutor Pyke, who claimed that far too often defence attorneys have made requests to be elsewhere.

Wildman stood up to respond to Pyke’s comments but yielded after the judge asked him not to take on the prosecutor. Bertram-Linton said she knew where Wildman was going with his response.On Thursday, when Pyke asked for a delay until next Monday, it seemed to surprise defence attorneys who were ready to continue the trial.

The cops are on trial for murder in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer, and Mark Allen on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew.

The men were killed in an alleged shoot-out with the police after the cops signalled the driver of a blue Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle in which they were travelling to stop.

It is alleged that when the vehicle stopped, men alighted and challenged the police in a gunfight, during which the three men were killed. Two illegal firearms were reportedly seized and it is alleged that a fourth man escaped during the gunfight.

The cops have maintained that their actions were in self-defence after the men allegedly alighted from a blue Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle to challenge their police team to a gunfight. A fourth man was said to have escaped and two illegal firearms seized from the scene.

The trial started in January — 13 years after the incident — and more than six months later, there is no indication it will end.

On trial for murder are Sergeant Simroy Mott and 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 Indecom.

Wildman, John Jacobs, and Althea Grant-Coppin are the attorneys representing the cops.

On Wednesday, the sole witness to take the stand was the Indecom investigator who, during cross-examination by Wildman, told the court that in carrying out his duties as part of the team that investigated the matter he visited Constant Spring Police Station in St Andrew where the six cops were attached.

He said a book, which he referred to as a station diary, was described as such by a detective at the station who presented it after he inquired about the particulars of the fatal shooting incident.

The investigator claimed that he transferred the details from the station diary to a form provided by Indecom. He said the copy was reviewed and verified by a cop at the station.

When Wildman asked him how he knew that the book was actually a station diary he said he was given that information by the detective who had brought the book to him.

The Indecom investigator also told the court that he was not there when the entry was being made in the diary and agreed with Wildman that he would not know if the information came from “the Roman Catholic Pope” as he had made no entry into the diary.

The witness said he did not recall seeing an officer of Indecom when he got to the scene in 2013. He also said he did not recall what time he got to the scene.

He told Grant-Coppin that he did not participate in any question-and-answer session in relation to the case. The investigator said that he only wrote one statement explaining what he did. That statement was written in May of this year, when the trial already started.