Judge threatens to ban reporters
November 29, 2005
CLAIMING misleading coverage of the Crawle murder trial of six police officers, Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe yesterday threatened to exclude reporters from the proceedings if they continued with their alleged inaccuracies.
"If the media write any further inaccuracies . in the interest of justice the media will be excluded from the trial," Wolfe declared.
The chief justice's ire was raised by headlines on Saturday on stories relating to the case in Jamaica's two morning dailies, the Observer and the Gleaner.
In the case of the Observer, Wolfe was angered by a headline - brought to his attention by Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry - to the effect that Deputy Commissioner of police Mark Shields had testified to "bugging" the phone of Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, one of the defendants in the case.
As was accurately reported by the Observer, Shields had told the court that he had, during the investigation, attached a recording device to a telephone being used by a policeman - who figured in the events at Crawle where four persons were shot dead - who was in a conversation with Adams.
"I attached a device on the telephone to record a conversation with Sergeant Facey and Superintendent Adams," Shields, a former Scotland Yard officer, told the court on Friday.
But yesterday Pantry complained to Wolfe that the newspapers - the Observer for the recording device issue and the Gleaner about a British judge's reprimand of Shields for his conduct in a UK case - had misrepresented what was said in court.
Journalists, Pantry lectured, had to be more "responsible" in their reporting.
"It is most unfortunate that this is happening while the trial is going on," Wolfe warned. ". If anything such as this happens again, I intend to remove the media from the trial."
Added the chief justice: "Nothing was said about bugging. They have to be careful how they report what happens in court. If the media people want to participate in this trial they have to be more cautious and careful when reporting matters in this trial. They don't interpret anything, they just write."
The judge suggested that the ostensible inaccuracies could compromise the trial and lamented the fact that, unlike some other jurisdictions, Jamaican reporters covering trials were not trained lawyers.
"I cannot afford, after all this time... that anything prejudicial should be done to abort this trial," he said.
Wolfe also referred to the lead story in the Sunday Observer, quoting the permanent secretary in the national security ministry, Gilbert Scott, saying that the government had agreed to contribute $19 million to the defence of the policemen on trial.
"That kind of thing should not be done during the trial," he said. The chief justice, however, did not indicate in what way the reporting was wrong or how it would compromise the trial....
Author: T K Whyte
Source: Jamaica Observer
