WESTERN BUREAU: THE MONETEGO Bay Street People trial was adjourned early yesterday after Arthur Cameron, a Parish Council truck driver, failed to attend to give testimony. The trial will resume on June 14 when Cameron is expected to take the stand.
St. James Parish Council's Superintendent of Roads and Works, Tubal Brown, and his deputy, Ezekiel Clarke, testified yesterday. The identity of the driver of the Parish Council truck on the night of July 14 when 32 street persons from Montego Bay were handcuffed and taken to St. Elizabeth came up for in court again. Mr. Brown said that he had no knowledge of who was driving.
His deputy Ezekiel Clarke said that the driver of the truck would have recorded his mission in the drivers' log book. However, that book went missing from the Council's office during the public debate about the forced movement of street people.
Mr. Clarke admitted that a duplicate key to the truck in question was locked in his desk drawer that night, and this was brought to his attention only in August when he was asked to produce it at the Commission of Enquiry. It was revealed yesterday that the keys to the truck were usually left in an open area where other employees had easy access to them. The attorney representing truck driver Roger Leslie, Carolyn Reid, told the court that under the circumstances, the key could have been available to other persons.
Special Sergeant Earl Clarke testified on Monday. He contradicted his August 9 statement to the police, when he said that garbage collector Egbert Campbell whom he had identified in his earlier statement was not known to him. When asked if he could identify Campbell who sat in the dock next to Constable Maxine Pindling and Leslie, Clarke said he did not see that man in court.
Detective Inspector Raymond Morant was cross-examined by Constable Pindling's attorney Ian Ramsay. The lawyer put to the Inspector that Constable Pindling, on August 9 was questioned at the Area One headquarters for about 12 hours. During that time she was refused a meal, threatened with being transferred to the Mobile Reserve and that this duress could have affected her statement.
In court, the Inspector denied that the constable was threatened.
"It never happened sir," he responded.
"I would not call it torture, but it was certainly oppression," Mr. Ramsay told The Gleaner outside the court house.
Woman Constable Maxine Pindling, Parish Council truck driver, Roger Leslie and garbage contractor, Egbert Campbell, are on trial for their alleged involvement in the July 1999 forced removal of over 32 street people from Montego Bay.
Assistant DPP Bryan Sykes said Tuesday that Mayor Hugh Solomon and secretary manager Lilieth Allen, who were subpoenaed by the court earlier, would not be called to testify at the trial.
