The credibility of Roel Taylor, one of the 27 accused in the ongoing Klansman gang trial who insists that he is a furniture maker and not a gangster, came under scrutiny by trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes on Thursday while reviewing secretly recorded conversations in which a person, said to be Taylor, is heard discussing guns.

Taylor is charged in counts 23 and 24 of the indictment with illegal possession of firearm and illegal possession of ammunition. He is also charged on count 2, along with the remaining 28 accused, with being a member of a criminal organisation.

Witness Number One, a former gang-member-turned-Crown witness, had testified in the long-running trial that he received instructions to collect a gun which was being held by Taylor following a conversation with top brass members of the gang who were in police custody at the time.

The witness, who was working with the cops undercover, said he called a member of the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations Branch (C-TOC) with whom he was in contact. He said he allowed the C-TOC investigator to drive his car to a yard on Jones Avenue, Spanish Town, which was part of the gang’s stomping ground. Once there he said Taylor entered that yard through a fence carrying a gun “in a black scandal bag”. He said Taylor handed him the weapon, telling him not to move as another individual was coming with the “corn” [bullets]. The witness had also testified that he introduced the investigator who was with him to the unsuspecting gangster as his uncle.

But Taylor, in his unsworn statement, said he was not involved in any gang activities and did not meet with the witness anywhere.

The chief justice, who has been painstakingly sifting through his 174-page summation of the evidence in the matter, said this denial by Taylor is being tested by the evidence presented by the witness, who also recorded calls between himself and the reputed gang members, the transcripts and recordings of which are before the court in evidence.

“Witness Number One is saying not so fast, because we have a conversation recorded between both of us. This evidence, the Crown is suggesting, would undermine Taylor’s assertion that he is a cabinetmaker and knows nothing about these things. This is what the Crown is saying, that this shows that Mr Taylor is not being truthful when he says he knows nothing about any criminal organisation and has not been involved in any criminal activity. In any event, he is saying, ‘I am not called Rell, I have never called Witness Number One.’ So there is a credibility issue here because Witness Number One is saying, ‘It is you I spoke to,’ ” the chief justice said.

“The other point the Crown is making is that when you look at the exchanges, in terms of the conversation between Witness Number One and Mr Taylor, if this is accepted, it is affirmative evidence that undermines significantly Mr Taylor’s claims of being a humble cabinetmaker. This is not the kind of conversations that cabinetmakers have in the normal course of their profession. You expect to see things like lumber, saws, hammer, glues, but not conversations about guns and so on,” the trial judge noted dryly.

In one of the recordings, a voice said to belong to Taylor is heard quarrelling that he is awaiting a call and not getting it. He further reported that Bryan, who was in custody, had been told by the police that they would be banning him from receiving visitors for a month. He is also heard telling Witness Number One to be careful. Witness Number One, in asking Taylor which number he called Bryan on, was told some digits of the number.

“So now, what is this saying? This is saying that Witness Number One, if accepted of course, was in conversation with Mr Bryan who is supposed to be in custody since March 2018. So here you have these two persons having this conversation about Mr Bryan’s ability to communicate and both of them seem to be saying they bought phone chips and got it to him for him to be able to converse. So what the Crown seems to be saying is that Mr Taylor is not only a furniture maker but also a supplier of contraband to Mr Bryan while he was in custody, and looking at the other evidence in the case, is it consistent with Mr Taylor being a member of a criminal organisation,” the chief justice said.

He noted that the phone numbers attributed to Bryan by Witness Number One would prove significant when assessing the evidence about the numbers lifted from the contact lists of the handsets which were entered into evidence.

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