Accused in plantain chips vendor murder gave statements voluntarily

A VOIR DIRE – a trial within a trial – to determine the admissibility of an oral and written caution statement by the accused, Tony Collymore, disclosed that the statements were obtained freely & voluntarily.
Justice Franklyn Holder, who conducted the voir dire in the absence of the jury, ruled yesterday.But the oral and written statements have not yet been made available to the jury.
Yesterday afternoon the judge who resumed the substantive trial was expected to rule on an application from the prosecution to have the depositions of a sick Woman Police Corporal read to the jury as she was too ill to turn up at the jury trial.
Defence counsel Mr. Euclin Gomes is objecting to the application on the grounds that the witness was not cross-examined at the PI and that there was need for this to be done before the jury.
But Prosecutrix Miss Diana Kaulesar is contending that at the hearing of the PI the accused had the opportunity to cross-examine the witness and cannot now blame someone else if he did not take advantage of that opportunity.
The accused, a vendor of Longden Street, Georgetown, is accused of stabbing to death plantains chips vendor Jermain Simon on August 2, 2012, following a row between them.
The hearing is continuing.