CHIEF Justice Bryan Sykes on Tuesday appeared to chide the prosecution in the ongoing Klansman Gang trial for not going “the extra step” to provide direct evidence to its claims that accused members of the outfit, while behind bars, were actively engaged in telephone conversations with other members on the outside.

The chief justice, who has been summing up the evidence in the case since earlier this month, was on Tuesday assessing the transcripts of telephone recordings from one of the handsets with three participants identified as defendant Jason Brown, alias Citypuss and Puss; Stephanie Christie, alias Mumma; and Witness Number One. Brown has been serving a life sentence since 2012. Christie and the witness were not behind bars.

The trial judge took pains to point out that despite making significant efforts to ground its assertion that the calls were being exchanged, prosecutors had still missed one element which could not have been supplied by Witness Number One – a former gang member turned State witness – who had testified that he gave the police three phones with recordings of conversations between himself and members of the gang, including leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan beginning in January of 2019. Bryan had been taken into custody in 2018. The witness said he downloaded a call recording app that was set to automatically record cell phone conversations and save them. He forwarded those recordings to police at the Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigations Branch (CTOC), where the recordings were transcribed in his presence with him identifying each voice he heard. He said two of the phones were given to him by the police and the third was given to him on the orders of Bryan who did not know he was working against the gang.

The trial judge, however, pointed out that Witness One “had never been to Horizon to see any of these persons but he is making the claim that as far as he understood these persons he spoke to, would be in jail”. This, the judge said, amounted to “hearsay”.

“Now here I must make another observation, the prosecution is suggesting that Witness Number One is speaking to persons who are supposed to be in jail and so rather than call admissible evidence on that score, the Crown elected to rely on a statement made by Witness One to the effect that these persons would take the call in jail when he is actually saying he has never been to see any of the persons, so at best it would be his belief as to where they were and if the Crown is saying that these persons were in the custody of the State,” he added.

“There are records so call for the records and bring the witnesses along with the relevant records to say when these conversations were taking place. As it presently stands, it’s a matter of evidence other than when some of the defendants, through the agreed facts said, “we were in custody at the time of the telephone conversations,” said the chief justice.

“There is really no evidence from the Crown really proving that these persons were in fact in custody at the time when these conversations were taking place,” he added.

“So, the best we can say then is that, assuming that Witness Number One is correct in his identification of the voices that he spoke to these persons. As to where they were at the time of the conversations, he couldn’t tell us,” he noted further.

He said while the telephone service providers would have been able to provide this information to coincide with the (particular) time calls were made that nexus was not properly made.

The chief justice, however, went on to point out that in the recordings of the conversations involving Christie, Jason Brown and the witness reference had been made to several of the defendants who are now on by their given names and by their aliases by the call participants who spoke freely and with a degree of familiarity with what was being discussed.

Those mentioned by name included alleged gang leader Andre ‘Blackman’Bryan; Pete Miller O/C Smokies; his brother Marco Miller, O/C Hezzie; Jahzeel Blake, O/C Squeeze Eye; Andre Golding, O/C Rae Tae Blacks; Lamar Simpson, O/C Sickhead/ Brains; Andre Smith, O/C Bolo (deceased); Kalifa Williams, O/C Baba; Fabioan Johnson, O/C Crocs; Chevroy Evans, O/C Kartel; Dylon McLean; and Tareek James, O/C CJ.

He also pointed out that Christie herself responded to her alias “Mumma” and Brown to his alias “Puss”, the shortened reference to “Citypuss”.

“The Crown is saying as you go through you don’t hear names such as Bishop Herro Blair or Father Ho Lung; the persons you hear referred to are gang members,” the chief justice said.

Furthermore, he acknowledged that the defendants made reference to being behind bars and complained about the activities of warders which disrupted the time they were able to spend on their handsets.

He noted, too, that the Crown’s assertion that Brown was integral to the operations of the gang and was deeply involved, though incarcerated, and was “critical” to its case against him as all the other counts where he was named has so far failed making it, so that he remains on one count on the indictment which is Count Two which charges him and all the remaining defendants with membership of a criminal organisation.

In May last year, satellite data showing the 10 most frequently used cell towers featuring in calls allegedly made amongst members of the gang between 2018 and 2019 revealed that cell sites in the vicinity of the Central police lock-up in downtown Kingston, where Bryan was being held and the neighbouring Horizon Remand Centre, where his supposedly senior lieutenant Jason Brown is being held, were heavily used by cellular phones linked to both men.

The matter resumes this morning at 10:00 at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.