A Customs Officer told a Supreme Court jury yesterday that she watched a man pass cocaine to a nursery school employee ? during school hours ? after receiving a tip-off.

Senior Customs Officer Kelly Trott told a nine-woman, three-man jury that she watched Wilston Ezekial Davis pass a Smith?s shopping bag to a woman, she now knows to be Sidney Augustus, outside the Vernon Temple AME Child Care Centre on June 5, 2003, from an unmarked Police van.

Davis, 42, of Somerset Road, Sandys, denies having cocaine at the school, which is the centre of an increased penalty zone.

Chief Justice Richard Ground is presiding in the case which may run for up to nine days.

Pc Trott ? who is seconded to the Police Narcotics Department with the rank of Special Constable ? told Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrossen that at 11.35 a.m. she was in an unmarked Police van outside the CV Take Out restaurant on Middle Road, Southampton, across the road from Vernon Temple Child Care.

Pc Trott said that when the van first arrived children were in the playground but a woman then rounded them up and brought them back into the school.

Shortly afterwards, a man arrived riding a motorbike.

The woman returned to the front of the building with a piece of paper in her hand and after a conversation, took the bag from the man.

Pc Trott said the woman was looking into the bag as she walked back.

The man then crossed the street and purchased a drink at CV Take Out.

Pc Trott said she got a full view of the man?s face, because he ?kept turning and staring into the vehicle?, as he passed within five or six feet of the Police officers inside.

She described the man as ?relatively small for a man, dark skinned and clean shaven?.

During this time, she said the woman came out to the bike again and placed something on the bike seat.

The man later rode back onto Middle Road on the cycle, AR 269, but the officers lost track of him.

During cross-examination by Davis? lawyer Victoria Pearman Pc Trott said the van was ?in excess of 30 feet? from the nursery.

When Ms Pearman asked how it was possible that she could tell it was a H.A. & E. Smith?s bag from that distance, but could not read the licence plate, P.c. Trott said she ?shops there a lot?.

?I hear you girl!? Ms Pearman replied, to laughter in the court.

But Ms Pearman pressed further and the officer said the bags are distinctive in their green colour.

She said she did not see what was in the bag but, later in the proceedings, Det. Con. Jewell Hayward presented photographs he took of the contents of the bag, a blue box, which itself was inside a yellow bag.

Another photograph showed an empty blue box and six bags containing an off white substance.

Ms Pearman asked Pc Hayward whether he had touched the bags at any time to photograph them and he said he had. She then asked him whether any fingerprints were found on either the bags or the boxes. He said none were found.

The trial continues today in Supreme Court.