An officer involved in the search of 14-year-old Stephen Bain's bedroom in 1994 said yesterday he had not seen former detective sergeant Milton Weir "plant" a spectacle lens in the room and did not believe Mr Weir would "stoop that low".
Former detective Jacques Legros was recalled by the Crown to give evidence about the defence allegation Mr Weir had planted evidence in the bedroom.
He told Justice Graham Panckhurst and the jury he and Mr Weir had essentially worked "shoulder to shoulder" as they painstakingly searched the confined and cluttered bedroom in the days after the June 20 shootings of five members of the Bain family.
They made a systematic 360-degree sweep in an anti-clockwise direction and at no time did he see Mr Weir touch anything in the area where the defence say a spectacle lens was planted.
When the lens was found under an ice-skating boot, he and Mr Weir had to wait quite a while for it to be photographed where it was before it could be removed.
The lens was not dusty, Mr Legros said.
They had to pick it up carefully and make up some sort of cardboard box so it could be kept in an upright position to avoid contamination.
The defence allegation the lens was planted was not put to Mr Legros when he gave his evidence two weeks ago.
He said yesterday he did not believe Mr Weir had done what the defence alleged, although he agreed with Crown counsel Helen Cull QC he was not with the other officer "every minute of the day" during the week after the shootings.
And he accepted it was "highly unlikely" someone would "plant" a spectacle lens in front of him.
But he said, if he had seen Mr Weir at any time on the Thursday evening or any other time that week planting the lens, he would not have stood for it.
The first thing he would have done would be report him to Senior Sergeant Jim Doyle or CIB chief Peter Robinson.
"I would have no problem denouncing him, so to speak," Mr Legros said.
Today's hearing will not start until the afternoon as one of the jurors is graduating this morning.
