Allow us to use conflicting witness statements - DPP

Veteran criminal defence attorney Patrick Atkinson has rubbished a recommendation by the nation's chief prosecutor, Paula Llewellyn,, that the law be amended to allow her office to utilise, during a criminal trial, statements given to the police by a witness who later gives contradictory evidence in court.

Llewellyn's suggestion comes two years after the main prosecution witness in the so-called X-6 murder trial rejected in court the statement police investigators said he signed in their presence, causing the case to collapse.

Last month, two brothers were acquitted of murder stemming from a brazen daylight killing that was captured on video at a gas station in Montego Bay, St James, after one of the main witnesses for the prosecution also rejected the statement investigators said he had signed.

Llewellyn, in her submissions before the parliamentary committee that is reviewing the so-called anti-gang legislation, argued that the time had come for Jamaican lawmakers, like their counterparts in Belize, to implement Section 15 of the Evidence Act.

"Where in a criminal proceeding a person is called as a witness for the prosecution and (a) admits to making a previous inconsistent statement; or (b) a previous inconsistent statement made by him is proved by virtue of Section 71 or 72, the statement is admissible as evidence of any matter stated in it of which oral evidence by that person would be admissible and may be relied upon by the prosecution to prove its case," she said, quoting from the Evidence Act of Belize.

"Witnesses, when they repudiate their police statement or recant, then it puts the prosecution's case in a more difficult position. Gang cases are tailor-made for these things to happen," she insisted.

 

NEVER SEEN A 'VERBATIM STATEMENT'

 

But Atkinson, who was the lead attorney for Patrick Powell, the businessman who was found not guilty of killing Kingston College student Khajeel Mais in the so-called X-6 murder trial, warned against acceding to Llewellyn's proposal, citing concerns about the manner in which witness statements are recorded by the police.

As an example, Atkinson indicated that he had never seen a "verbatim statement" taken from a witness by the police.

"The circumstances under which a witness statement is taken, and the manner in which it is taken, leaves a lot to be desired. It is clear that what they bring forward as police statements are interpretations of the police officer as to what the witness said," he asserted.

Further, the former attorney general said that Llewellyn's proposal would "obviate the need and necessity for the protections of a trial".

Atkinson said that his fear was that under the proposal, each witness statement would contain all the elements of the crime that prosecutors wanted. "It, basically, makes a mockery of a trial," Atkinson declared.

 

IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

 

But Llewellyn, the director of public prosecutions, defended her suggestion and urged lawmakers to demonstrate the political will.

"Ultimately, it would be for the judge to decide - looking at the particular statement and hearing the witness - what they make of everything. It is an idea whose time has come," she said.

"I know that some persons from the defence Bar [defence attorneys], they may not like it, but I know in Belize they, too, had a serious gang problem, and the political will certainly was there," Llewellyn told members of the joint select committee that is leading the overhaul of the four-year-old Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com