When Will This Débâcle End /

In yet anoth­er vin­tage dis­play David Simmons who heads the Commission inves­ti­gat­ing events in Tivoli Gardens in 2010 showed that his arro­gance is mak­ing a mock­ery of the enquiry.

Giving evi­dence yes­ter­day Superintendent Everton Tabannah tes­ti­fied that a female infor­mant who lived in Tivoli Gardens told him that men from Grant’s Pen Kingston 8 who had gone to Tivoli Gardens to join Christopher (Dudus)Coke’s Militia were killed after they demand­ed par­tial pay­ment of $50,000 of the $100,000 total pay­ment they were promised by Coke.
Tabannah tes­ti­fied that the infor­mant told him she was hap­py the Security Forces took over the com­mu­ni­ty as she was quote“tired of the fool­ish­ness” which was hap­pen­ing in her community.
Tabannah tes­ti­fied that from infor­ma­tion gleaned from infor­mants over 300 heav­i­ly armed mili­ti­a­men were in Tivoli Gardens before the Security forces annexed the com­mu­ni­ty to the rest of the Island.

It was then that Simmons jumped in inter­rupt­ing Tabannah .… “I’m sus­pi­cious of this evi­dence. I’m sus­pi­cious, this evi­dence does not sit well with me”address­ing attor­ney for the JCF Deborah Martin.
As one of the hear­er of facts Simmons was with­in his bounds when he inter­rupt­ed Tabannah insist­ing that that part of his tes­ti­mo­ny was not in his ini­tial statements.

The Superintendent explained that the par­tic­u­lar point had slipped his mind but that he had relayed that infor­ma­tion to oth­er offi­cers includ­ing his supe­ri­ors and named those to whom he relayed the information.
Simmons is praised as an astute Lawyer/​Judge, in the inter­est of clar­i­ty and for the record I am nei­ther just a can­tan­ker­ous blogger.
However it real­ly is remark­able that David Simmons does not under­stand that intel­li­gence or what is referred to as infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing is not evidence.
As such the Police offi­cer has absolute­ly no oblig­a­tion to include what he heard(hearsay) into an affi­davit (state­ment) which is a fac­tu­al prov­able nar­ra­tive of the offi­cer’s rec­ol­lec­tion of events.

Since the infor­ma­tion giv­en him was not proven, it is (hearsay) and not admis­si­ble in a court of law (as per Jamaican law). This does not mean that though the offi­cer can­not prove it that it did not hap­pen , infor­ma­tion is for the use of police to do fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions with a view to solv­ing crime it is not evidence.
Essentially that infor­ma­tion is like a road rather than a destination.

Most shock­ing how­ev­er is that David Simmons asked Superintendent Tabannah to give her name and address in the open forum of the hear­ing room. Tabannah in his police wis­dom said he didn’t take her name and doesn’t know her address.
He essen­tial­ly shook Simmons off using his knowl­edge of the laws, Simmons could learn a thing or two if he would get out of his own way.
For peo­ple who are not famil­iar with the process Superintendent Tabannah skill­ful­ly side­stepped the igno­rant and stu­pid demand by claim­ing he does not know her name nor address.

SEE ALSO DAVID SIMMONS WON’T APOLOGIZE TO VAV…

Those famil­iar with how wit­ness­es and infor­mants are treat­ed in Jamaica are patent­ly aware that reveal­ing his source’s name and address in that open forum would have been tan­ta­mount to a death sen­tence on that poor woman.
The Tivoli Enquiry is a huge waste of scarce tax­pay­ers resources. It is being used to shame and indict the Jamaica Labor Party .
It is time that peo­ple of con­science demand that this nev­er end­ing fish­ing expe­di­tion end and David Simmons pack up and head back to Barbados.
Clearly Simmons is more con­cerned with grand­stand­ing and show­boat­ing than lis­ten­ing to the tes­ti­mo­ny of the wit­ness­es with a view to mak­ing rea­soned recommendations.
There are hard­ly any Jamaicans who do not know what Tivoli Gardens was about. There are hard­ly any real Jamaicans who do not know how gar­risons are oper­at­ed . They cer­tain­ly do not need any­one from Barbados to shed light on ghet­to life in Jamaica.

There are more than enough instances of gross cor­rup­tion with­in the sit­ting admin­is­tra­tion which are wor­thy of enquiries To date there are none as far as I know.
It’s time for this horse and pony show to end send this pompous jack-ass back home.…..