A phone owned by a man charged with blackmail was used to call the victim of the crime on multiple occasions over several days, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.

Janico Burrows, 28 — in partnership with Jahmeco Blakeney — is alleged to have taken $1,200 from Paulette Godfrey in June 2020 after making threats to harm her son.

Blakeney earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of blackmail.

On the second day of Mr Burrows’s trial yesterday, prosecution witness Detective Constable Stephen Clyke testified that he reviewed records of telephone calls between phones owned by Mr Burrows, Blakeney and Mrs Godfrey.

He said that he was also able to download WhatsApp messages between Mr Burrows’s phone and Blakeney’s phone.

On Monday, Mrs Godfrey said that she received a call on June 2, 2020, from an unknown man who insisted that her son owed him money and that she had to pay off the debt.

She told the court the man said that if she failed to do so, he would throw her son’s body in her yard wrapped in a plastic bag.

Out of fear for her son’s safety, the senior said, she agreed to pay the blackmailer $1,200 in three payments over the next three days.

The court heard that arrangements were made for Mrs Godfrey to take money out of an ATM before driving to St Anne’s Church in Southampton, where she would hand the cash over to a man identified as “Ink”.

Mrs Godfrey said that she followed those instructions, making three payments of $300, $400 and $500 over the next three mornings. She said that the blackmailer would always call her beforehand to confirm the arrangement.

She was unable to identify the man to whom she gave the money because he always wore a mask.

In his testimony, Pc Clyke said that an examination of Mr Burrows’s mobile phone revealed that the user account was under the name of “Ink”.

He also told the court that there had been only a small amount of contact between Mr Burrows’s phone and Blakeney’s phone in the weeks before the scam began, but that there was a flurry of communications between the two devices from the beginning of June 2020.

The court heard that WhatsApp messages showed that Blakeney sent instructions to Mr Burrows’s phone on June 3. In one message, Blakeney suggested putting in a code before dialling Mrs Godfrey to prevent the number from appearing on the victim’s phone.

Jurors heard that another message read: “Tell her you want $100. Tell her to meet you at St Anne’s Church no later than 10am.”

According to Pc Clyke, telephone records showed that Mrs Godfrey was bombarded with calls from the phones of both men from June 3 until June 7, 2020, when Blakeney was arrested.

He testified that on June 3, calls were made from Mr Burrows’s phone to Mrs Godfrey four times between 10.14am and 10.35am.

The court heard that on June 5, ten calls were made from Mr Burrows’s phone between 8.42am and 9.37am, while Blakeney called the victim eight times.

In her testimony on Monday, Mrs Godfrey said that she frequently failed to pick up the calls.

She said that she finally went to the police after the blackmailer had been paid the $1,200 but then demanded more payments.

Mrs Godfrey also said that she eventually recognised the telephone caller to be Blakeney, who was a friend of her son.

Pc Clyke arrested Mr Burrows on June 12.

Under cross-examination by defence attorney Marc Daniels, the officer said that Mr Burrows had co-operated with the investigation, agreeing to give his phone and password to police. He also agreed to take part in a video identity parade, but was not picked out by Mrs Godfrey as the man she met at St Anne’s Church.

Pc Clyke said that two additional mobile phones found at the home that Mr Burrows shared with Blakeney were not examined for evidence.

He explained that the backs of both phones had been removed and they were not working.

Mr Daniels is expected to begin the case for the defence today.

The trial continues.

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