Legal arguments yesterday dominated the Magistrates' Court trial of six former narcotics officers accused of repeatedly beating a convicted drugs importer while in custody.

Jamiko Tucker, 27, Allan Miguel, 40, Kirley Mitchell, 31, Andrew Woolridge, 32, Antoine Fox, 37, and David Bhagwan, 30 are charged with assaulting former Dunkley's Dairy employee Michael Madeiros and causing him bodily harm in late October, 2003.

Madeiros himself was found guilty in February of conspiracy to import over $2 million worth of cannabis, concealed in a Dunkley's Dairy container shipped from the United States.

At the centre of the lengthy legal wranglings was the admissibility of photographs taken by Madeiros' wife, Lisa, on Monday, October 29, 2003 ? the day her husband was released from custody ? which demonstrate heavy bruising to Madeiros' eye, face, side and buttocks.

The defence, led by Allan Doughty and Larry Scott, pointed out that the photos were taken by the complainant's wife using a digital camera, and were produced through her home computer and printer.

Images secured in such a way are not permitted to be entered as evidence under the Evidence Act they argued ? while there were several aspects of the pictures which called into question their authenticity and their true ability to reliably demonstrate the real injuries Madeiros had sustained.

In fact, the pictures had been taken with the injured side of Madeiros' face in the shadow so as to deliberately "enhance" the extent of the bruising, the defence claimed. And despite a number of legal representations to the contrary from Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney, Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner acceded to the defence's requests.

Mr. Warner said there was already an "abundance" of evidence to suggest that Madeiros was sporting injuries at the time and that he was not satisfied the photos advanced the Crown's case in any meaningful way.

But back under cross-examination, Mrs. Madeiros denied she had tried to deliberately exaggerate her husband's bruising by the clever use of light, pointing at that she is not a professional photographer and was only concerned with accurately capturing her husband's injuries.

She also bristled at the suggestion that the extensive bruising on her husband's buttocks was inflicted by her during a violent domestic dispute on the day he was released from custody ? and not after being beaten by the accused officers.

"That is completely incorrect," she said.

She did confirm, however, that they had got into an argument that day and that Madeiros was upset because of certain "information" he had become aware of.

Taken back to October 24, 2003 ? the day of her husband's arrest ? Mrs. Madeiros reiterated that she had seen her husband leave for work at 7.30 a.m. with no visible injuries.

She confirmed also that at around 1 p.m. she had phoned the hospital and the Police, after work colleagues phoned to tell her Madeiros had disappeared and he was not answering his cell phone.

She strenuously denied the suggestion that she had become panicked and anxious because she knew he was scheduled to collect his "big pick up".

Meanwhile, the two other Crown witnesses to make an appearance yesterday, former hospital locum Thomas Mele and lawyer Mark Diel, both testified that they had seen bruising and swelling to Madeiros' face, side and back while he was in custody between October 24 and October 29.

Both confirmed, however, that Madeiros had neither complained of any pain on his buttocks nor shown them the considerable bruising to his left buttock which appears to be shown in one of Mrs. Madeiros' pictures.

However, Mr. Diel did say he saw "at least" four horseshoe shaped wounds on Mr. Madeiros' scalp during a private interview with his then-client at Hamilton Police Station on October 25.

The trial continues this morning.