By Latrishka Thomas
The trial against Washington Bramble continued yesterday with the cross examination of a cyber forensic specialist.
The defendant – who has been representing herself for almost two weeks in a trial where she is accused of making statements on Facebook in February last year about Chief Magistrate Joanne Walsh for the purpose of insulting, intimidating, causing hatred, and causing enmity – spent the afternoon grilling corporal Owen Rigby.
Rigby had previously told the court that he screen-recorded the page of “Washington E Bramble” on March 1 2022 and again on July 14 2022 from his iPhone.
And, on Wednesday, the court played those recordings and the prosecution examined certain posts with the witness pinpointing certain features such as dates and captions on photos and live videos posted before and after the alleged criminal posts.
Well, yesterday, Bramble came loaded with questions for the witness having noticed that the video appeared to be lagging and pixelated at some parts – an issue which the officer blamed on the court’s software or devices.
Right off the bat, the accused asked if it’s possible for the police to stitch two pieces of video together to get one.
“The possibility does exist when dealing with several different footage … to stitch into one seamless video for the purpose of showing a sequence of events,” Rigby responded.
The defendant then began to insinuate that transitions were used to place fake images into the screen recording.
“I put to you that the first video is screenshots taken from my Facebook, added to fabricated screenshots made up by the police,” Bramble suggested, but was quickly told “no”.
But the defendant pressed on asking, “Would it be possible for the police to obtain a screen-recording of my FB then to add the two screenshots in question of the posts allegedly made about Joanne Walsh and to make it appear as one video?”
“Yes, it is possible but that was not done,” the witness said.
The defendant then asked the court to replay the video and drew the court and the witness’ attention to parts where she said, “It jumps from one post to another which doesn’t happen when you’re scrolling.”
She suggested to the witness that several transitions were evident in the footage but the witness denied the claim.
Bramble, however, persisted asking, ‘”Why did you insert the screenshots into the video?”
“I did not insert anything,” he answered firmly.
The cross examination went on for quite some time, culminating in an adjournment until Monday.
Bramble will be afforded the opportunity to continue questioning the officer.
Thereafter, the prosecution may call about two more witnesses to further its case.
