Attorney Hugh Wildman on Thursday insisted that he would never deliberately stay way from the fraud trial of his client Fritz Pinnock in the St Andrew Parish Court, but said his involvement in the murder case of six cops in the Home Circuit Court, downtown Kingston, has been creating unavoidable scheduling clashes due to the latter matter being dragged out by the prosecution.

Wildman was defending himself at a news conference he called a day after Justice Sanchia Burrell told Pinnock that he may have to cross-examine a witness himself if no legal representation is present for him when the delay- plagued Ruel Reid and company fraud trial resumes next Monday.

“Today’s press conference is called to respond to the media reports and various comments concerning the Pinnock and Reid matter, where the judge made certain comments in my absence and gave the impression that I deliberately stayed away from the court.

I wish to make it abundantly clear that everybody in Jamaica knows my position; I don’t shy away from court,” Wildman said.

“In fact, I am known to appear in all courts and take a certain stand to defend my clients vigorously,” he said.

“The situation is this: It is a known fact that we are engaged in the trial of the six police in downtown since the 7th of January of this year.

When the case commenced, the trial judge [Sonia Bertram- Linton] made it abundantly clear that she got instructions from the chief justice that that case must be a priority case; that’s what she told us,” Wildman said.

He said that in all his years of practising law he has never seen a situation in which a murder trial is dragged out by the prosecution the way that the policemen’s matter has been.

“The case has been going on unnecessarily long because of the conduct of the prosecutor in recalling and recalling witnesses, evidence to adduce new evidence, and it goes on and on, uncontrolled.

It amounts to an abuse of process.

The case continues and continues, and nobody knows when this case will come to an end,” he said.

“Everybody in the justice system knows about this.

In fact, we have had cases in court where Supreme Court judges have said they know Mr Wildman is engaged in other matters, and they put off the case.

Up to this week…

The point is this, I explained to Ms Burrell the challenge we are having with the downtown case, which is a priority.

It’s a murder case with six policemen.

I’m representing four of the accused persons,” he said, emphasising that, “It is impossible for me to be at two places at the same time.” On Wednesday in the Parish Court, fellow defence attorney Carolyn Chuck told Justice Burrell that Wildman had advised that he would ask another attorney to hold in his stead; but no one turned up.

Chuck went on to share that Wildman had indicated that he could also have challenges with being present next week as he was given time off from the Supreme Court to deal with the arrangements for his mother’s funeral.

Justice Burrell acknowledged the sensitivity of the matter and extended condolence to Wildman’s family.

However, she queried why this had not been communicated before.

“I don’t take lightly that Mr Wildman is making funeral arrangements for his mother, and my condolence goes out to him and his family, but early information- sharing makes a huge difference,” she said.

“I have to be very sensitive because all of us who are here either have a mother or had a mother at some point…

but I am not understanding the lack of communication; the lack of communication is very unhelpful,” the judge said.

Emphasising that the case impacts four other accused, Burrell said Wildman and Pinnock are not entitled to an infinite supply of the court’s resources.

Her comments came on the one-year anniversary of the official start of the trial, which has been plagued with scheduling challenges.

“It cannot be that Mr Wildman avoids appropriate and adequate communication and expects to get what he asks for,” she said.

“How can the rights of four other people be expected to continuously and infinitely, at this point in time, … be expected to yield to Mr Wildman’s failure — I am using the word failure — to organise himself?” Justice Burrell said.

Pinnock, the former Caribbean Maritime University head; former education minister Ruel Reid; his wife Sharen Reid and daughter Sharelle; as well as Councillor Kim Brown Lawrence (Jamaica Labour Party, Brown’s Town Division) are defendants in the high-profile $25-million fraud trial in the parish court.

In the matter being heard in the Home Circuit Court, the six policemen 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 St Andrew, during an alleged shoot-out.

On Thursday, Wildman said he was trying to find a solution to his problem, telling the news conference that he has written a letter to Chief Justice Bryan Sykes urging his intervention.

“I was shocked when I heard that the judge was behaving like that, as if I deliberately stayed away from court.

Everybody knows that that is not my style.

I want to be there to defend my client, Mr Pinnock, and defend him vigorously, because we maintain that there is no case against him.

But the point is that I am locked in that trial downtown.

What do I do?” he said.

“Should I have walked away from the criminal case downtown with the six policemen? I don’t know why this is taking so long.

Every day, up to yesterday, I made serious submissions in law based on the constitution, that the trial is an abuse of process with what is going on downtown,” he said.