Bramble asks magistrate to recuse himself as trial nears end

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Social media personality Washington Bramble has asked Magistrate Dane Hamilton Jnr to recuse himself from her court matter – and if he does, he will be the second magistrate to do so.

Bramble has been on trial for the past few days for remarks reportedly made on Facebook in February last year about Chief Magistrate Joanne Walsh for the purpose of insulting, intimidating, causing hatred, and causing enmity, all of which she denies.

After cross-examining a witness yesterday afternoon, the defendant – who is transgender – indicated that she believes that the magistrate is biased.

“I had a conversation with an attorney and, based on the convo he said he had with you, I am not confident that you will give me a fair and impartial trial,” she shared.

The prosecutor in the matter referred to the defendant’s application as one that “isn’t rooted in merit but is a tactic” because it happened to come at a time when the evidence was allegedly turning in the prosecution’s favour.

The magistrate then indicated to the 41-year-old defendant that she is required to file evidence of the allegation of bias, including an affidavit from the said attorney.

The magistrate will hear Bramble’s application on Tuesday.

Magistrate Dexter Wason, who was originally set to preside over the matter, had recused himself.

The case was then handed over to Magistrate Conliffe Clarke who is now on leave.

Before Bramble surprised the court with her application, police corporal and cyber forensic specialist Owen Rigby was giving his evidence.

In his examination in chief, he told the court that on March 1, he found “Washington E Bramble” on Facebook despite not being friends on the site and scrolled through the page on his iPhone while screen recording.

He said he saw photos and videos that looked like the accused throughout the page.

And he said that when he got to February 7, he saw the posts for which the accused is charged.

The officer said that although he made two recordings in March and on July 14 he revisited the page and made another because he was of the opinion that he “didn’t do a good job” because he didn’t capture certain information.

In that recording he made sure to capture the user’s Facebook ID which he said helps the application to find a particular user.

He said the recordings were placed on a CD and a report was also compiled. The prosecutor sought to admit both into evidence but the defendant quickly objected.

She said that the CD “does not meet the standard or the Electronic Evidence Act of 2013” and “it is not my Facebook they got it from”.

Bramble argued that the exhibit does not meet any of the requirements listed in Section 7 of the legislation and “there is no meta data … that can’t be tampered with”.

“He just did what anybody else can do. Go on Facebook and do a screen capture,” she said referring to the witness.

In addition, she asserted that the prosecution has not met the burden of proof needed to authenticate these posts.

“The only way Mr Rigby could have authenticated that the posts came from Washington Bramble would be to gain access to the Facebook account stored on the devices of the accused, which they had seized,” she stated.

The Crown responded saying that they are relying on Section 6 because Section 7 refers to hearsay.

She said, “If you accept the witness and his qualifications you will have no difficulty accepting his evidence.”

She explained that one of the requirements of admitting a recording is that the device must be working properly, which the witness indicated that it was.

In addition, the officer saw live recordings which prove that he was on Bramble’s page and witnessed all of the posts with his very eyes.

The magistrate then ruled that the exhibit meets requirements in Section 5 and 6 and informed the defendant that “the list is not conjunctive” but rather the evidence only has to satisfy one requirement.

The prosecutor then continued to question the witness about the live recordings he saw. He indicated that he came across one in January, one in April, and another in June.

He said that he even opened each live to “capture the individual who is in the live”.

It was then the unrepresented defendant’s turn to cross examine the witness, and she began by suggesting that he did a poor job of determining whether the posts truly came from her.

“Why didn’t you access my phone?” she inquired.

“I wasn’t aware that the phones were there. I was on vacation,” Rigby replied.

“So, in six months that they had my phone they never brought the phones to you to do forensic analysis on?” she followed up.

“Phones are submitted at the lab not individuals at the lab, then it’s assigned to an individual in the lab. From my understanding someone did analyse the phones,” Rigby responded.

Bramble then asked, “All you did was go on your phone and do a screen capture. That’s the depth of your investigation,” and the witness agreed.

She then asked the witness about the possibility of images being doctored by the police.

The witness answered saying, “Anybody can use a photo enhancing software to bring clarity to a photo, video, a piece of audio, and if the police do use such a software, we would always have a copy of the original.”

There were about three more witnesses left to testify before the matter was adjourned.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmm, top… advising the bee? Lots to hide and protect. Oh what a tangled web we weave blah blah blah.

    • Gender Collusion JEALOUSY..
      ” when a Gyal Marries”….
      Nice Topic Talk Show..
      Dennis Rodman in Fact
      Who wEARS a FROCK?
      Cutie ? BRAM ? 👩‍⚖️? / Squeeze?
      Save Some Cloth
      Save Some Froth..
      Who Foo south go South
      Who Foo NOrth,????? All is Naught.

  2. So shouldn’t Gaston Browne be on trial for this stuff too? He posts spiteful, hatred words all the time!

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