A police investigation into the handling of recordings of Bermuda Court of Appeal proceedings was flawed and has ended with more questions than answers according to pressure group Civil Justice Advocacy Group.
But Commissioner of Police Michael DeSilva is standing by the investigation and its finding of no criminal conduct.
Chief among CJAG’s criticism is that Court of Appeal president Justice Edward Zacca was not interviewed by Police during the investigation.
In 2013, CJAG filed a complaint against Justice Zacca and Supreme Court Registrar Charlene Scott alleging that audio recordings of certain court proceedings had been withheld from litigants and may have been wilfully destroyed.
The group demanded a criminal investigation into the matter saying the failure to provide the recordings was unlawful and hampered their ability to further their cases.
Police launched an investigation in September 2013 and handed a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions in August 2014.
Last week, police announced that a “full and comprehensive investigation” had been conducted and said that claims of criminal conduct were unfounded.
In a letter to CJAG, Chief Superintendent Nicholas Pedro said that Justice Zacca had ordered the court recording system turned off during the period with one exception.
“As such there is no evidence that any other recordings were ever made in respect of the other cases that form the complaint,” the letter continues.
“It follows therefore that audio recordings were not ‘withheld or destroyed’ because they did not exist in the first place.”
Police also stated that Zacca’s decision to turn off the recording system was within his legal rights, and that an official government report – cited in CJAG’s complaint – that the recording system captured all the cases during the period, was inaccurate.
No reasons have been given for the judge’s decision to switch off the system. Neither Zacca nor Charlene Scott could be contacted for comment.
CJAG says it was surprised to learn, in a meeting with Pedro last week, that Zacca was not interviewed by the police.
The group also claims that Pedro revealed that no forensic examination of the court recording system had taken place and that police did not seek an independent assessment into whether recordings had been deleted or the system tampered with.
The group insists that the system was observed to be in operation by one of the litigants, but that the court clerks responsible for its operation had not been interviewed by the police.
Politica put these points to the Police Commissioner.
“As the investigation file is not a public document, I am not at liberty to discuss the fine grain details of each decision that was taken during the course of the investigation,” DeSilva said in an emailed statement.
“I will point out, however, that we do not generally record statements from persons who do not have anything substantive to offer, or where they can only provide evidence of something that has already been appropriately verified.
“I have satisfied myself that the investigation was conducted properly and that the conclusions are supported in law. This has been independently verified by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Since no prosecutions will follow, the specific details of the police investigation are not subject to public review via the media.
“We are not aware of any witnesses that can assist this enquiry and take it any further. But if Mr. Johnson is aware of witnesses who can provide material evidence of something they saw or did in this case, they should be put in touch with us without delay.”
This article belongs to Politica ! The original article can be found here: Police Chief defends court recordings probe
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