THE defence in the ongoing trial of 25 alleged members of the Tesha Miller faction of the Klansman gang on Monday mounted fierce objections to block the Crown from entering into evidence a statement collected from accused Charles McLeary, two days after a double murder in John’s Hall, Clarendon in June 2020.

According to prosecutors, McLeary along with co-accused Bjourn Thomas, Sharn Gilzene, Conroy Cadogan and Kemar Francis knowingly facilitated the commission of a serious offence
— the murder of Jermaine Jones and Allen Cameron on June 26, 2020
— and were taken into custody following a highway chase which also resulted in the seizure of two motor cars in which they were travelling. The accused men allegedly ambushed and opened fire on Jones and Cameron, who were travelling in a Toyota Hiace bus.

The statement, which was collected while McLeary was in custody at the Lionel Town Police Station on Sunday, June 28, 2020, has been a bone of contention since last Friday when a deputy superintendent of police assigned to the Major Investigative Division was on the witness stand to give evidence of his interactions McLeary that night.

According to the senior cop, he had observed the taking of the statement by a detective sergeant who spoke with McLeary. He maintained that the statement was simply McLeary’s “account of his whereabouts” at the time of the murders. However, when the prosecution made an application to have that statement read into the records of the court on Friday, the defence objected, raising concerns about the “voluntariness” and the “fairness” of the statement, contending that it was taken “in the dead of night” and while McLeary was “a suspect” and not charged.

On Monday, defence attorneys who presented written objections to trial judge Justice Dale Palmer peppered the cop with questions during a voir dire (trial within a trial during which admissibility of evidence is determined) which lasted several hours. The senior cop had insisted that “no threat” or “promise” was made to McLeary to have him produce the statement and that the accused man had not been charged for the crime even after he had left the station following the exercise.

He further told the acting deputy director of public prosecutions leading the evidence that he did not know McLeary prior, stating that up to the point of that statement being taken there had been no eyewitness accounts of the crime that he was aware of.

Defence attorneys Iqbal Cheverria, Javed Grant, and John Clarke asked the cop about his interactions with McLeary and the statement. Grant, who insisted that McLeary had been pegged a suspect by the cops, accused the lawman of using promises of release to force the statement from him. Clarke, for his part, contended that the dates on the document “did not coincide” and quizzed the senior lawman at length about whether the statement collected from McLeary was a witness statement or a caution statement.

The cop, however, calmly reiterated that the statement was the account of McLeary about his whereabouts on June 26, 2020.

The prosecutor marshalling the evidence, in re-examining the witness before the voir dire ended, pressed him about why McLeary was not released after he had given his statement.

The cop responded this was because it was determined that further investigations needed to be done into McLeary’s account about where he was.

Prosecutors will today make their own submissions to the trial judge in their quest to have the document
— “marked for identification” on Monday following an application
— tendered and admitted into evidence.

Last Thursday, a police detective had testified that two firearms
— a silver and black 9-millimetre Beretta pistol with the magazine affixed and a black Smith & Wesson Springfield .40 calibre pistol with a magazine affixed
— were found hidden in one of the vehicles which had been driven by McLeary, who is a former Jamaica Urban Transit Company bus driver.