Judge allows secret recordings in One Don gang trial

The much-anticipated secret recordings of conversations of alleged members of the One Dong gang, including reputed leader Andre 'Blackman' Bryan, are to be entered into evidence.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes ruled yesterday that the recordings have met the statutory standards of the Evidence Amendment Act 2015. Alleged members of the gang are on trial in the Home Circuit Court.

The recordings were captured by a former top-tier gang member, who is one of the prosecution's two star witnesses, using three cellular phones. The prosecution is relying on the recordings to corroborate the testimony of its two main witnesses and to prove that the defendants were operating as a gang. Sykes said that the evidence from the witness was sufficient to meet the statutory standards as the operation carried out by the witness did not require any expertise or technical understanding of the application.

"We are living in an era where smartphones are as common as ever and software applications are more user friendly and one can use a computer effectively without knowing the intricacies," he said.

The judge added that the witness' evidence that he had used the application frequently and had recorded enough material which had to be contained on three phones further showed that he had sufficient understanding of the application that he had downloaded and had configured to do automatic recordings of all phone conversations. Sykes further agreed with the prosecution's submission that there was no evidence to suggest that the application used to do the recordings was malfunctioning or that the witness had tampered with the recordings.

The judge said that despite the fact that the witness had confessed to being a criminal, being an accomplice did not disqualify him from giving evidence to establish the legal requirements.

The prosecution had submitted that it had satisfied the requirements of the act, as the phones were working properly at all times and there is no malfunctioning which is shown that would have affected the production of the recordings. The defence, however, had disagreed. Lead attorney Lloyd McFarlane, who is representing Bryan, rejected the argument that it could be inferred that the recording application was working properly based on the recordings' ability to open and play without crashing.

The trial will continue today.