Sykes throws down gauntlet for mega gang trials
Prosecution rapped for fumbles
Published:Thursday | March 24, 2022 | 12:09 AM
Accusing the prosecution of being sloppy in its management and collation of vast amounts of material in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes warned on Wednesday that all future such cases will only start once a significant portion of the pretrial preparation has been completed.
The judge made the disclosure after he was forced to grant the prosecution on Wednesday a further seven-week adjournment after coming off a one-week break given to allow them time to examine a Communication Forensic and Cybercrime Unit report and to identify witnesses to be called.
The prosecution had also requested time to complete the transcription of recordings from the last of three cell phones used by a former gang member to secretly capture conversations with his then cronies.
However, when the trial with the 33 defendants was resumed, the prosecutor informed the court that the Crown had not realised the volume of information that it had received, which consisted of 57,000 files, including telephone records.
The prosecutor also reported that because of the large size of the data, the material that should have been disclosed to the defence electronically from last Wednesday was only completed on Sunday.
In addition, the judge was told that aspects of the transcription had not been completed.
Justice Sykes slammed prosecutors for scrambling to complete investigations while the matter is before the court, which has a 24-month standard for the wrap-up of trials.
“We have to put that culture and mentality behind us,” the chief justice said.
“... That means you can’t go and pick up people, arrest and charge them, keep them for extended periods, and then put them before the court and then now when the matter is before the court, the case is still not substantially completed,” he added.
Months after the trial began last September, the prosecution revealed that it was having problems collecting call data information from two service providers.
Shortly after, FLOW submitted the information, followed thereafter by Digicel, after the judge had given instruction for the latter to be subpoenaed.
The trial, which has suffered a number of delays, will resume on May 2.