An FBI-trained handwriting expert has given evidence to the trial of two men accused of conspiring to import $300,000 worth of cocaine.

Andre Phillip Hill, 53, and Raynol Shane Todd, 51, are jointly charged with conspiring to import the drugs, which were discovered by a Customs officer in three boxes delivered to Federal Express on December 24 2004.

According to prosecutors at the Supreme Court trial, Hill went to the FedEx office in Serpentine Road, Pembroke that day to collect the boxes. However, the Customs officer had already alerted Police to the discovery, and Hill was arrested as he left the office with them.

He allegedly told the Police the packages were for Todd, who was waiting in the nearby Belco parking lot. Officers found him there in a car and arrested him.

The jury hearing the trial has already heard from Detective Constable Windol Thorpe that he confiscated the three boxes from Hill after his arrest, along with a letter dated December 24 from an "Angela Bassett" of St. David's — the listed receiver of the parcels from Trinidad and Tobago — authorising her "friend" Mr. Hill to pick them up.

The officer also seized a piece of yellow paper, upon which were listed three parcel tracking numbers. Det. Con. Thorpe told the jury that in a Police interview, Hill said he'd written the letter from "Angela Bassett" in order to hurry the process of picking up the packages.

He told the Police he had been given the piece of paper with the tracking numbers by Todd, who asked him to pick the boxes up for him and gave him $50 for a taxi to do so.

The jury has also heard from prosecution witnesses how handwriting samples were collected from both Todd and Hill after they were arrested.

Sergeant Lola Murphy, an FBI-trained handwriting analyst who works for the Royal Barbados Police Force, explained how these samples had been sent to her.

She compared them to the piece of paper with the tracking numbers seized from Hill, which he said had been given to him by Todd.

Her conclusion was that it was "highly probable" Todd did pen the note, and she told the jury that the note and Todd's writing samples showed "consistent and significant structural similarities, and practically no dissimilarity."

The differences between the note and Hill's writing sample, she said "are too numerous to mention — they just did not compare."

Sergeant Murphy told the court she has been involved in more than 5,000 handwriting cases and has been called by both prosecutors and defence lawyers to give evidence about handwriting, typewriting and counterfeiting in ten countries across the Caribbean, including Barbados.

The men deny conspiring to import the cocaine, with Hill having also pleaded not guilty to an additional allegation of handling the drugs with intent to supply them.