A prosecution witness testified yesterday that May Pen businesswoman Althea Morgan-Carr, 37, asked her to get someone to kill Inspector Loraine Elleston.

This at the first day of the trial of Morgan-Carr and two men charged jointly with conspiracy to murder the policewoman.

Morgan-Carr will have to remain on a stretcher throughout her trial. She cannot sit or walk and it is reported that she is suffering from a serious back ailment which requires surgery.

She is charged with Stephen Smith and Calgette Gilbert. Prosecutors Jeremy Taylor and Annette Hanson are leading evidence at the trial, which began yesterday in the Home Circuit Court, that in January 2005 the three conspired to murder Elleston.

The policewoman said in her testimony before Supreme Court Judge Carol Lawrence-Beswick and the seven-member jury that on September 14, 2004, she arrested Morgan-Carr at the Norman Manley International Airport and charged her with possession of and taking steps to export cocaine. Morgan-Carr was imprisoned for the offences.

A witness testified that she met Morgan-Carr while they were both in custody at the Central Village Police Station. After they were given bail, they kept in touch. She said Morgan- Carr asked her if she knew anybody who could kill the policewoman. She said she told Morgan-Carr she would get back to her but she did not. Questioned why, she said "because I was not in support of killing". She said Morgan-Carr told her that she wanted the cop killed as if she was dead there would be no case against her.