A forensic gait expert told the Supreme Court that he noted “similarities” between the walking motion of a murder suspect and the man accused of the offence.

Barry Francis told the trial of Kiari Tucker that he reviewed CCTV recording from the Deepdale area of Pembroke before the murder of Morlan Steede and footage taken of Mr Tucker on Court Street that same night. “I found some similarities,” he said.

Mr Tucker, 27, has denied the November 3, 2017, murder of Morlan Steede, 35, along with the use of a firearm to commit an indictable offence.

CCTV footage played during the trial showed Mr Tucker and others on Court Street hours before the fatal shooting of Mr Steede.

The recordings showed Mr Tucker getting on the back of a motorcycle and being taken to One Way Deepdale, before returning to Court Street minutes later.

He was later seen walking into the Elliot Street parking lot and off-camera shortly after 8.20pm.

At about 9.11pm that day, CCTV footage from Deepdale appeared to show a figure in dark clothing and a helmet walking through the area.

The same camera later recorded a man in a white shirt running down One Way Deepdale followed by a person in all black at about 9.40pm.

As they ran, flashes of light were seen to come from the outstretched arm of the person in black.

As the trial continued this week, Dr Francis told the court that he compared footage of the man in dark clothing from the 9.11pm footage, who he referred to as Man X, and the defendant, and examined how they walked.

Dr Francis told the court that in the footage from Deepdale, Man X appeared to drop his left shoulder when his left foot came forward, “almost like a limp”.

He added that Man X also appeared to have a “narrow base of gait”, noting that, as he walked towards the camera, one leg would disappear behind the other.

Dr Francis said that he also observed a hint of the suspect’s left knee turning inward, while the right knee remained straight.

He told the court that when he reviewed footage of Mr Tucker from Court Street, he noticed the defendant’s left shoulder dropping as his left foot moved forward.

Dr Francis also noted that Mr Tucker appeared to walk with a narrow gait.

Under cross examination, Dr Francis accepted that forensic gait analysis was an “evolving science” and it was important that the jury could see the similarities that he had identified in the footage for themselves.

“In general terms, it is important that the jury should see what I see,” he said. “I tried by demonstration to show what I was seeing.”

Dr Francis denied that he had taken particular interest in the case of Mr Tucker.

However he accepted that, at an earlier hearing, he had asked permission to be in the court to watch the evidence given by another expert witness.

“I had never heard gunshot residue evidence,” he said. “I was interested.”

He accepted that, while the police had given him some information in the case, it was less than he often received.

“If there had been no similarities between the footage, I would have seen, I would have noted it and said there was no point in going on with forensic gait analysis,” he said.

The trial continues.

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