Public Defender’s Decietful Self-serving Lies Exposed

Having served in the JCF for a brief ten years I have been a vocal crit­ic of the Agency in areas in which I know it can be bet­ter despite the chal­lenges it faces. I am also a staunch sup­port­er because I know we des­per­ate­ly need law enforce­ment if we are to sur­vive as a nation.

And so for us Jamaicans, not of mal-intent, it is impor­tant that we come togeth­er for the greater good of our coun­try.
It is with that in mind that I wrote an arti­cle in response to the Public Defender, Arlene Harrison-Henry’s par­tial sub­mis­sion to a select com­mit­tee of the par­lia­ment on a raft of issues to include the treat­ment of pris­on­ers in cus­tody and that pub­lic body’s per­cep­tions regard­ing the State of Emergencies declared and in effect in select areas.

We Must Secure Our Country And See To The Rights Of Citizens At The Same Time

Although the (OPD) said it’s sub­mis­sion was not com­plete, I thought that there were areas in which the Public Defender had dipped its nose that was vast­ly out­side its remit.
What was clear to me is that like Earl Witter and [stand-in] Matondo Mukulu before her, Arlene Harrison-Henry’s under­stand­ing of her role and that of her office was one which was cre­at­ed to be antag­o­nis­tic toward law ‑enforce­ment.
This may or may not be so, it could also be that [Arlene Harrison-Henry] who came from the Bar Association is mere­ly act­ing-out what are nat­ur­al instincts evi­dent in many lawyers to be unprin­ci­pled rapa­cious vul­tures rather than prin­ci­pled offi­cers of the court. 

Nevertheless, in writ­ing a response I tried to steer clear of specifics, con­ver­sant that the often­times inept Constabulary, should itself con­firm or refute the claims made by the Public Defender. 
In fact, I was hop­ing that a response would come from the JCF which sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly rub­bish­es the claims made by the Public Defender.
That response came today in a no-non­sense response from the com­mand­ing offi­cer Senior Superintendent of Police Anthony Morris, who is the offi­cer in charge of the SOE. 

Speaking to local media (SSP) Morris rub­bished spe­cif­ic areas of Harrison-Henry’s report on the num­ber of chil­dren in police cus­tody and oth­er areas.
Arlene Harrison-Henry lied to the Parliament that there were some 105 chil­dren up to the age of 17 detained as of October 31.
SSP Morris refut­ed that claim,“At no time did we ever have that num­ber of chil­dren in cus­tody.”
Police records show that in January, 10 chil­dren were in cus­tody; in February there were 12; in March, eight; April, 11; May, sev­en; June, five; July, 13; August, 12; September had eight; October, 11; and dur­ing this month, eight.
See link here. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​f​r​o​n​t​-​p​a​g​e​/​n​o​t​-​t​r​u​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​c​o​u​n​t​e​r​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​d​e​f​e​n​d​e​r​-​s​_​1​5​1​0​6​0​?​p​r​o​f​i​l​e​=​1​606

The larg­er issue here is this, what if there were the 105 chil­dren Harrison-Henry argued in cus­tody?
If these minors com­mit­ted crimes, are the police sup­posed to sim­ply walk away from arrest­ing them?
Minors are walk­ing around mur­der­ing peo­ple in Jamaica are the police sup­posed to sim­ply ignore them?

The Public Defender talked about the qual­i­ty of the food being giv­en pris­on­ers. The offi­cer point­ed out that the meals are pro­vid­ed for both police offi­cers and pris­on­ers alike. Asked about the qual­i­ty the senior offi­cer said, for bulk food, it was pret­ty good and encour­aged the media to go see for themselves.

On bath­room facil­i­ties that too was a [lie] the media found that no clean up was done in antic­i­pa­tion of their arrival and in fact dis­cov­ered that there were decent ablu­tion areas for pris­on­ers to prac­tice per­son­al hygiene.
According to the (Jamaica Observer) Police Officers were not too pleased with the fraud­u­lent report sub­mit­ted by Arlene Harrison-Henry.
“The infor­ma­tion that end­ed up in the pub­lic domain, which I think was meant to demean the (JCF) was broad­cast right through­out Jamaica,” said Deputy Superintendent Ainsley McCarty.

Suffice to say, the day before the pub­lic defend­er went to Parliament — because the pub­lic defend­er has spo­ken to me on numer­ous occa­sions and she knows that I am acces­si­ble 24 hours a day to her — she called me to clar­i­fy cer­tain infor­ma­tion. And if she want­ed [fur­ther] clar­i­ty, she could have asked dur­ing that peri­od of time and I would have said to the pub­lic defend­er that this was the sit­u­a­tion,” DSP McCarty said.

Which brings us to motive.
Being anti-police is Jamaica’s largest growth indus­try. Like every­one else, Arlene Harrison-Henry is cru­cial­ly aware of this, as is every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the streets.
Like Terrence Williams who heads INDECOM the Independent Commission Of Inquiries, every­one seek­ing rel­e­vance, nation­al awards, and oth­er acco­lades are crit­i­cal­ly aware that dog­ging the police depart­ment is a sure­fire way to get what they seek.
Arlene Harrison-Henry a duplic­i­tous, con­niv­ing, and rapa­cious lawyer did not make her­self avail­able for the job because of any burn­ing desire to do good.
Like count­less oth­ers before her, includ­ing the dis­graced for­mer head of (JFJ) Jamaicans for Justice Carolyn Gomes, she is seek­ing fame and recog­ni­tion and what bet­ter strat­e­gy than to ride on the backs of the police to get there?

And so there must be a recog­ni­tion that peo­ple have their own indi­vid­ual motives and agen­das.
As such the Parliament must move to cod­i­fy into law, safe­guards which appro­pri­ate­ly crim­i­nal­izes those who would lie to the par­lia­ment.
The exi­gen­cies of the times demand it. The leg­is­la­ture must act on it.

READ AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE