Daley's trial continued yesterday in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court with the further cross-examination of the com-plainant, Tafari Clarke.

Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Dirk Harrison indicated towards the end of the day's proceedings that he was going to play the video recording of Daley's arrest. Defence attorneys challenged the move, stating that the video needed to be edited before it could be played.

Although Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey said such an application should have been made before the video was tendered into evidence, defence lawyer Valerie Neita-Robertson said no caution was administered to Daley during his arrest and therefore his responses, as captured on tape, were inadmissible.

Lack of a caution

In response, Harrison said cautions were directory, not mandatory, and so the lack of a caution was not enough grounds to lobby for the tape to be blocked. Harrison said when Daley asked what the arrest was about, the police told him and that was tantamount to a caution.

Neita-Robertson, in cross-examining Clarke, said her aim was to prove that Clarke was a "blagger and a liar". Clarke admitted to the court that he had lived with a woman who was recently extradited for fraud. He also told the court that he had paid her $300,000 to secure a green card, even though she was not employed to the US Embassy. He, however, said he did not know that she had been charged with fraud until he read about it in the newspaper.

When questioned about the fact that he was never heard on tape referring to the money as extortion or protection money or complaining about having to pay it, Clarke said he " could never in his right mind tell Mr Daley that he was tired of paying the money". He said he was afraid of Daley and if "the money was short one month, I had to tell him that he would get it next month".

Clarke said Daley asked to be paid every month in order to keep away 'Terry', a man who was terrorising Clarke and demanding money. He said Daley demanded to be paid or to be given a shop on the plaza Clarke operated. He denied suggestions that the money he paid Daley was money owed to him by Clarke's uncle.

However, Neita-Robertson told the court that he did not pay Daley for several months and nothing bad happened to him.

The trial will resume on Thursday when the defence lawyers will continue their lobby for the arrest tape to be blocked.

Daley is accused of collecting extortion money from complainant Tafari Clarke between May 2007 and July 2008. He was held during a sting operation on Arnold Road on July 31 last year with $15,000 in marked $1,000 notes which he allegedly collected from Clarke.