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‘Chucky’ Brown Trial | Defence likens INDECOM assistant commissioner to 'snake'

Published:Wednesday | November 7, 2018 | 12:00 AMNickoy Wilson/Gleaner Writer

Defence attorney Norman Godfrey told jurors yesterday to prevent injustice by returning a verdict of not guilty to each of the five counts on the indictment against murder accused Constable Collis 'Chucky' Brown.

While presenting his closing arguments at the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston, Godfrey suggested that "impropriety and injustice reared its head" early in the form of Assistant Commissioner of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) Hamish Campbell's conduct when the meeting took place with Brown on August 6, 2013.

"He (Campbell) knew early during the meeting that Collis Brown was incriminating himself," said Godfrey, arguing that Campbell should have advised the accused of the perils to which he was exposing himself. "The law requires him to have done that."

The defence attorney described the assistant commissioner's conduct on that day as reptilian. "Not one that has legs, but glides on its belly - a snake," he said.

Godfrey also said that during meetings with INDECOM, the issue of relocating Brown and his family abroad and of his protection while in Jamaica was "held out to him" by the agency, which explained why his client was so willing to speak.

Eyewitness 'a stranger to truth' - attorney

The defence attorney for murder accused Constable Collis 'Chucky' Brown yesterday said that the prosecution's sole eyewitness was "a total stranger to the truth".

According to Norman Godfrey, the witness' testimony that he saw the accused come out of the vehicle on January 10, 2009, along the Palmer's Cross main road in Clarendon cannot be believed.

He said that the prosecution wants the jury to believe that Brown was in the vehicle or that he was the driver of the vehicle based on witness testimony and Brown's interview, respectively.

Godfrey said, "If you don't believe Brown, you can't believe the prosecution."

He maintained that Robert 'Gutty' Dawkins was not running away from the alleged shooter because the medical evidence shows that he was shot from the front, not from behind.

The prosecution ended their closing arguments suggesting that Brown made his own decision when he carried out the alleged killings. They said that because Brown did not have to follow an unlawful order, this obliterated the argument that he did not have a choice in what he allegedly did.

Brown is on trial for the 2009 murder of Dawkins as well as the December 13, 2012, murders of Dwayne Douglas and Andrew Fearon along the Swansea main road in the parish.

He is also facing one count of wounding with intent and one count of conspiracy to murder.

The defence will continue presenting its closing arguments today.