A former police officer told a Supreme Court jury how he gathered clothing and other items from a bedroom at the home of murder suspect Kiari Tucker the day after the killing

Jeffrey Blaire, who has since quit the force, said that on November 4, 2017, he was a member of a Police Support Unit dispatched to an apartment on Tribe Road No 1 in Warwick, where Mr Tucker lived.

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

Giving testimony yesterday, Mr Blaire said that when the unit arrived at the property, Mr Tucker was not there.

However, he did take about a dozen items of clothing that had been “strewn“ on a bed he knew to be Mr Tucker’s, as well as a pillowcase and bedsheets.

Mr Blaire said that he placed the items in brown paper bags so that they could be passed on for forensic examination.

Charles Richardson, for the defence, pointed out that Mr Blaire had attended police firearms training sessions three times before the shooting, lastly on August 22, 2017 — more than ten weeks before Mr Steede was shot dead.

Mr Richardson asked the witness if he took his uniform home and if he had a regular laundry schedule.

Under re-examination by Crown counsel Daniel Kitson-Walters. Mr Blaire said that the uniform worn for firearms training was different from that worn when on regular duty — and that he was wearing his regular uniform on the afternoon that he searched Mr Tucker’s home.

Also during yesterday’s session, Barry Francis, a forensic gait analyst continued with his testimony.

Dr Francis had earlier said that he had found similarities between the way Mr Tucker walked and the stride of the suspect.

The jury was shown CCTV footage of 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.

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 and found “some similarities”.

In earlier testimony, Dr Francis confirmed to the court that he could not speak to how prevalent the walking features he described were in Bermuda or suggest that any features were “unusual”.

“I am aware I should not be giving prevalence evidence,” he said.

Dr Francis also agreed that the portions of footage he compared were filmed in different circumstances.

He accepted that the portion of footage of Man X was filmed as the suspect walked up an incline at night while wearing a helmet.

However, the footage of Mr Tucker showed him taking several steps on flat ground without a helmet on.

Dr Francis told the court he was aware of contextual bias, but maintained that the information provided to him by police did not taint his perception.

“I try not to pay attention to it,” he added.

Questioned about “role effect bias”, in which witnesses identify themselves as being part of the prosecution or defence team and are swayed by that, Dr Francis said that he was a witness for the defence in his last few cases in the UK.

He added that while he had not been a defence witness in Bermuda, it was because he had not been asked.

Dr Francis also accepted that in his last case in Bermuda, he also identified some of the same features as in the present case, such as the suspect lowering his left shoulder as he stepped forward with his left foot.

He added that he could not speak about the prevalence of such features.

The trial continues.

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