A senior policeman says that providing anonymity to witnesses in qualifying offenses has given people the confidence to assist in investigations.
Assistant Commissioner Anthony Ferguson told The Nassau Guardian yesterday, "If you look at the matters before the courts, persons are making themselves available. Anonymity has given people the confidence to come forward."
The Witness Anonymity Act, which came into force in November 2011, allows investigators and prosecutors to shield the identities of witnesses at the investigative stage up to the trial.
While defending the drastic law during debate in the House of Assembly, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham referred to the murder of Robbie Rolle, who was shot multiple times during a home invasion on October 18, 2011.
Police suspect that the gunmen were in search of a witness to a murder earlier that year
He said, "It is my information that they tried to kill him before. This is the second attempt to kill this man, and they killed the wrong man".
Prosecutors can apply for anonymity orders in cases such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery while armed with a firearm, dangerous drugs, terrorist acts and trafficking in persons.
Anonymous witnesses testified in the recent murder trial of alleged leader of the East Street based Border Boys gang, Tony Smith, last month.
The witnesses testified from an undisclosed location via videolink and used false names. Their faces were obscured by an opaque screen and their voices were altered mechanically.
A jury acquitted Smith of the charges.
An armed robbery case against Valentino Bastian and Charles Pandy collapsed last year after the alleged victim refused to appear because a judge refused a request for him to testify via videolink.
The witness believed that the defendants were members of the One Order gang.
Justice Vera Watkins ruled,
"The court has no information on the article of association or purpose of this organization. There is no information with respect to the activities of the organization. There is no basis for the court to arrive at any decisions with respect to this organization. It follows, therefore, that the court cannot find 'John Doe' is a vulnerable person, as contemplated by the schedule merely because 'John Doe' believes that the accused men are members of the notorious 'One Order' gang."
In 2012, Keith Bell, the minister of state for national security, told the Senate that 25 witnesses have been killed in the past five years.

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