For the second time, a panel of judges has dismissed an appeal against former Progressive Liberal Party Senator Frank Smith’s acquittal on corruption charges.
The Privy Council on Wednesday refused the government permission to challenge a Court of Appeal decision that affirmed Smith’s acquittal on charges of bribery and extortion last August.
The government had asked the country’s final court to overturn Smith’s acquittal and order a new trial.
The country’s final appeal court explained its decision to refuse to hear the appeal, saying “there is no risk that a serious miscarriage of justice” had occurred in Smith’s case.
Before the Privy Council affirmed his acquittal, the former chairman of the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against government.
Prosecutors alleged that Smith had abused his position as PHA chairman for personal gain, when he allegedly demanded $60,000 from Barbara Hanna from 2017 to 2018.
Hanna, the owner of Magic Touch Cleaning Company, claimed that Smith helped her secure a $500,000 contract to clean the Critical Care Block at Princess Margaret Hospital — and demanded the payments to ensure that she kept it.says ”
Witness against Frank Smith testified, “I’m being used.”
However, the prosecution’s case against Smith quickly fell apart when Hanna claimed that she never went to police to report the alleged scheme. According to Hanna, the police came to her.
Hanna testified, “I felt that I’m being used, because I’m not the one, who really pursue this matter. And I’m not the one, who went to the police. I felt like I’m being used. That’s my feeling. And I can‘t change the way I feel or how I think about the situation, because I’m not the one who went to the police.”
According to the evidence, Hanna contacted Minister of Health Duane Sands, who then referred her to National Security Minister Marvin Dames. The police then contacted Hanna.
Phone records showed calls between the Cabinet Ministers and Hanna before police became involved in the matter.
Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt condemned the “egregious and unorthodox” conduct of both minsters in the case when she dismissed the case on February 1, 2019.
PLP leader calls Frank’s Smith prosecution malicious
In a statement Wednesday, Progressive Liberal Party Leader Philip Brave Davis, QC, condemned the attorney general for allowing the case to proceed.
Davis said, “The eyes of the public must also be on the Attorney General Senator Carl Bethel, who allowed this case to go forward, when he must have known the state of the evidence. It gives rise to the charge of malicious prosecution.”
He continued, “I am saddened by the fact that while justice has been served in this case, what of other people in our system who do not have the resources to take the fight all the way to the Privy Council?”
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