By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE SHORTAGE of stenograph machines which are used to record notes of evidence at the Supreme Court yesterday stalled the trial of 37-year-old Paul Gooden, who is charged with the murder of his wife, 36-year-old Ingrid Andrade-Gooden.
On the resumption of the trial yesterday, the court had to wait for 20 minutes while court staff made efforts to get a stenograph machine.
A machine was subsequently located and Mrs. Justice Marva McIntosh apologised to the jurors for the late start. The judge said she "gathered that there was a difficulty with the court reporting machines."
A reliable source told The Gleaner that each court reporter should be assigned a stenograph machine but because of the acute shortage of machines in the department, they had to be sharing machines. Some of the machines have become obsolete and others are out of service. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for providing the machines for the court reporters.
STRANGLED HIS WIFE
The Crown, represented by Director of Public Prosecutions, Kent Pantry, Q.C., David Fraser, deputy director of public prosecutions and Diahann Gordon-Harrison, Crown counsel, is alleging that Gooden strangled his wife between November 6 and 7 last year and dumped the body in mangroves off the Norman Manley Boulevard, St. Andrew. The body was found on November 8 last year and Gooden was taken into custody the following day.
A security guard employed to the Hartford Towers Court Apartment, 7 Sullivan Avenue, St. Andrew, where the accused and his wife lived, testified that about 11:15 p.m. on the night of November 6 last year he saw the accused Gooden parking near to the apartment building where he lived. About 15 minutes later he saw Gooden driving out at a fast speed through the gate. The accused returned about minutes to midnight and parked, in his usual parking spot. He saw the accused at 6:40 a.m. the next day driving through the gate with his two children in his car.
The security guard said he saw Gooden on the night of November 7 last year and at that time Gooden asked him if he saw who picked up his wife in the morning. He told him he did not see anyone pick her up and Gooden said it seemed he had left his post but he told him no. The security guard said that at midnight on November 6 last year, he padlocked the pedestrian gate and did not open it until 6:00 a.m. the next day. He said he had never seen Mrs. Gooden using the pedestrian gate. He denied suggestions from attorney-at-law Hugh Thompson, one of the lawyers representing Gooden, that he was trying to mislead the court when he said he saw Gooden driving through the gate on the night of November 6 because that was not in the first statement he gave to the police.
Dr. Tanya Foster said that on November 10 last year she treated Gooden for scratches to his right forearm. Gooden told her that about three days before there was an incident with his wife and that he received scratches from her nails. She said the abrasions seemed consistent with fingernail scratches.
The trial continues today.
