Net News letters’ mystery
(CNS): Of the various accusations made against Justice Priya Levers that led to the tribunal, it was revealed during this week’s fact finding proceedings that the authorship of the series of letters critical of the judiciary which appeared in June and July of 2007 in Cayman Net News was the most serious. However, other than hearsay from a witness whose evidence has been cited as contentious, it became apparent that there was no other evidence that Levers was the author. When the publisher, Desmond Seales, and managing editor, Barry Randall (left), of the paper took the stand, the possibility that those letters were generated in house was raised.
Randall, who is based in Miami and gave evidence via video link, and Seales took the stand on Wednesday (13 May) and neither stated who the real author was, though Randall said he had no reason to believe it was Levers. During questioning by both Timothy Otty QC for the tribunal and Stanley Brodie QC for Levers, it became clear that the sentiment in the letters was most definitely shared by Randall and had formed the basis of editorials written by him and Seales on a number of occasions. Randall admitted to criticising the local judiciary, not least in connection to his own case, and it was noted that one of the pseudonyms on the letters was Randall’s own sister-in-law, Thelma Turpin.
Witness statements submitted to the tribunal by former staff writer John Evans also indicated that the letters could have been written by Randall. Combined with the various witness statements, the evidence from Randall and at times the bizarre evidence given by Seales, it was clear the letters could very well have originated inside Net News itself.
During the questioning neither men were able to answer the question as to why, when the real Thelma Turpin had called to say she did not write the letter attributed to her, nothing was done to try and establish who had written the letter using her name. Randall told the tribunal that, while he was curious, he was not concerned and had no particular responsibility at that time for ensuring that letters are actually from who they purported to be from. “This really is a matter for the Cayman office, not for me, at that time,” he said.
Otty asked Randall about his own run in with the local judiciary and he confirmed that he had threatened legal proceedings against, amongst others, the chief justice, Justice Levers and Foldats, the clerk of the courts, and that letters critical of the judiciary have continued to appear in Net News since the tribunal was announced. When asked by Otty about Evans’ suggestion that he (Randall) was the source of the letters, Randall said, “Mr Evans is grossly mistaken.”
Brodie then questioned Randall with regard to an editorial dated 26 July 2007, the day before the Leticia Barton letter appeared, entitled “Judicial Responsibility”, which included a quote from Lord Bingham, similar points critical of the chief justice, the judiciary in general and the legal aid system, as noted in the Leticia Barton letter the next day, as well as references to Randall’s own case.
Brodie then asked if Randal saw this as all pure coincidence. “So far as I am concerned, yes,” he said. Asked if he felt it was a possibility that the Leticia Barton letter was also not a genuine letter but generated in house, he said it was a possibility that he did not rate very highly.
When Seales, the publisher & editor in chief of Net News, came to the stand, Otty questioned him extensively about why, since he had said that letters had been generated in house before, he did not seek to find out who was the real author of the Thelma Turpin letter. Seemingly not to understand the questions, Seales however admitted a failure in due diligence. When pressed further he kept saying there was no need to investigate the letter as it was signed by Turpin, who he had known for thirty years. Asked why when he found it was not written by Thelma Turpin he did nothing to discover how it came to be published, Seales said because he had taken her at her word. Otty noted, however, that she was not the author. Again Seales said, “I took her at her word, sir.” At which point Sir Andrew Leggatt, the chair of the tribunal, noted that if Seales did not understand the question he should not answer.
Otty then continued and asked him if there was concern that accepting the word of Turpin that she was not the author, someone other than her had sent in a letter purporting to be her. “You knew that to be the case as soon as you had spoken to Thelma Turpin,” Otty said. “Were you not concerned to try and find out who, in fact, had sent the letter?”
Seales then answered: “There was no reason to because she said so, sir, you are not going to move me.” Otty asked again if he was not concerned to see whether his own policies had been followed prior to publication of this letter, and Seales asked “Followed by whom, sir?” Otty then pointed to his staff. “Absolutely not,” Seales said. “They should have done so, they should have done due diligence, but they did not. Now, sir, then it is incumbent upon me to do so? I told you I have ten jobs to do.”
He said he had not raised it with his desk editor and had later discovered the original letters had been “trashed” and he could not throw any light on the authorship of the letters. Asked about the evidence from Evans suggesting that Randall could be the author of the letters and recounting a conversation between Evans and Seales about Seales saying Randall used the newspaper to fight his own personal battles, Seales denied the accusation.
“Did you tell Mr Evans on at least two occasions that you sometimes needed to keep a close eye on the material Mr Randall produced because he had a habit of trying to use the paper to fight his own personal battles?” Otty asked. “Poppycock,” Seales exclaimed. “He is not a journalist and I would not have him in my inner sanctum to make those sorts of decisions.”
However, Evans was employed by Net News as a reporter, evidenced by a reference letter submitted to the tribunal written by Seales, in which he acclaims Evan’s good character and his contribution to the paper as a writer.
Category: Headline News
I cant agree more, this paper gets more B/S going than the enquirer,why do people read it, gossip
I would recommend that everyone interested in this tribunal read the full transcripts of the Randall/Seales testimony.
These show a number of almost unbelievable contradictions in evidence from the two people who were jointly involved in producing Net News during this period and directly responsible for the publication of the letters.
Mr Evans
A lot of us would like to hear testimony from you on your part in all of this but you refuse to give it for some reason.
Just to set the record straight….
"A lot of us would like to hear testimony from you on your part in all of this but you refuse to give it for some reason."
I was available to attend and offered to fly out for the tribunal but it was felt that my written submisssions were sufficient. In the event that was proved correct. I was then effectively prevented from commenting any further by the rules of confidentiality imposed on those involved in the investigation.
However, there are still many unanswered questions about the letters and I am certainly available if the RCIPS decide to re-open their investigations into their source or any members of the media want to run with the story.
I agree that there are unanswered questions about the authorship of the letter.
1. I find it rather curious that a newspaper would leave the public to infer that this letter might have been concocted in-house. This would be against the rules of the "game" (somehow that word seems rather appropriate here). A newspaper normally expresses its views through the editorial; Writing a letter to the editor inhouse and passing it off as the view of a member of the public are misleading, to say the least. Why leave it so unclear?
2. I read earlier that this same Letitia Barton letter had also been provided to the Compass. Is it not extraordinary that a newspaper would draft a letter inhouse and send the same letter to the competition? That would be out of character — media houses thrive on exclusivity — and rather presumptious, even for Netnews.
To me, neither point, particulary the latter one, adds up to an in-house letter.
The Net News seeking to mislead the public? No way! Unheard of.
I am not sure I follow your thinking on this. If the motive was for certain information to be publicly exposed (rather than giving the Net News an exclusive) and the guilty party was at the Net News, and wished to allay suspicion that it was generated by someone at the Net News, providing the same letter to the Compass is a good way of accomplishing that. Moreover, if you wanted to allay suspicion from yourself personally you might wait until you know it is too late to be withdrawn and then make frantic efforts to prevent its publication.
There is motive, means and opportunity.
Now it is my turn to be confused: "Moreover, if you wanted to allay suspicion from yourself personally you might wait until you know it is too late to be withdrawn and then make frantic efforts to prevent its publication."
Not sure what frantic efforts were made to prevent publication. the Compass decided not to print it on its own volition. If this is alluding to a story (that I have hard and which is very confusing) about attempts to re-print the section of the newspaper that contained the Barton letter, no one in the public would have known that. It is only now coming out because of the inquiry. So how would that have deflected suspicious away from Netnews?
I do grant , however, that Netnews’ behaviour in this and other respects is hard to fathom.
To clarify what I meant by "misleading" in the previous posting: that was not at all suggesting that I think that Netnews would have suffered any moral dilemma about misleading the public. What I was saying was that newspapers guard themselves diligently against such public perceptions — even if they do fudge things behind the scenes, they would at least want to keep up the appearances of propriety. It is a huge thing to have admitted that it concocted letters in house –and to leave it open for the public to conclude that it may also have written the Barton letter inhouse is just mind boggling to people who know the standards which Netnews espouses — even if we all have impressions about whether they perform to those standards or not.
Why would they give that up? Why would they make admissions and leave implications with reference to matters so in violation of basic newspaper standards?
Was it to do everything possible to deflect suspicious away from the true author … that it would fall on its own spear? Extraordinary.
Why not just say that it cannot reveal its sources? That is the usual media line. Why say that the letter was "trashed"? Why say that it did not even check into why due diligence was not followed?
Because that would give the appearance that they were protecting someone — and they did not want to give that impression at this hearing.
That is what is most telling, as far as I am concerned.
"Now it is my turn to be confused"
You will be less confused if you read the transcripts of the testimony of Messrs. Seales and Randall.
We know from the Clifford affair that the Net News has no compunction about revealing their sources if they feel they are not at risk and it suits their purposes.
To last poster — exactly — Netnews’ record proves that it has no compunction about revealing sources — but I do not buy that its personnel "trashed" the original of the letter and do not know the writer. That letter was so volatile that the Compass rejected it — so I am not prepared to believe that Netnews very willy nilly went ahead and published it unawares. They know full well that there is no one in the Islands named Leticia Barton — so it just does not make sense that they don’t know the source of the letter.
And I still maintain that they would not be so presumptious as to submit an inhouse letter to the Compass. The Compass does its due diligence and would not accept a letter without checking into its source — so they would not run that risk and it is highly unlikely that they would involve their competitor. And at that time back in 2007, there was no inkling of an inquiry, so it does not stand to reason that it was trying to cover its tracks at that time by trying to get its competitor to publish its inhouse letter.
There is more here than meets the eye and years.
And, by the way, the Netnews report on the winding up of the hearing says that the attorneys intimated that Justice Levers did not write the said letter. Netnews is, as per usual, fudging what the attorneys said.
The attorneys agreed that there was insufficient evidence to prove she wrote the letter. That is not an exoneration.
"And, by the way, the Netnews report on the winding up of the hearing says that the attorneys intimated that Justice Levers did not write the said letter. Netnews is, as per usual, fudging what the attorneys said. The attorneys agreed that there was insufficient evidence to prove she wrote the letter. That is not an exoneration".
I don’t think you are reading the transcript since the Net News gave a fair summary in that respect. Please see the relevant parts in bold below:
I stand by my position — the tribunal found there was no evidence to support the Judge having written the letter — not that she did not write the letter.
Your quote as follows is merely trying to define the role of the tribunal (I expect that the write is quoting the Judge’s lawyer): "It is, however, no part of the Tribunal’s role to seek to identify the true author or authors of this correspondence, but it is invited to at least consider making a positive finding in Madam Justice Levers’ favour on this issue that she was not the author."
The additional quotes clearly state that there was insufficient evidence: "there was nothing supportive of such an allegation against Madam Justice Levers found on the computer searches carried out."
and
"…albeit in taking the material as a whole it is not possible to accept her (the secretary’s) account to be well founded."
They found no evidence — that does not amount to an exoneration — that means there was insufficent evidence."
I stand by my position.
Standing by your position, you are clearly of the view that Madam Justice Levers wrote the letters and the Tribunal has just not been able to prove it. I am simply pointing out the that counsel for the Trbunal did (as the Net News suggests) intimitate that Madam Justice Levers was not the author. He is obviously saying more than he found no evidence. Perhaps, as you are not an attorney, you do not understand lawyer-speak but it is very clear to me from these words [The Tribunal] is invited to at least consider making a POSITIVE FINDING in Madam Justice Levers’ favour on this issue that she was NOT the author." It is also clearly suggested that the Secretary’s testimony (the only evidence that implicates Judge Levers) although false was perhaps not deliberately false. I doubt very much that any of my legal colleagues would disagree with my assessment.
I am of no such view that Madam Levers wrote the letters — all I am saying is that the lawyers for the tribunal are not in a position to say definitely that she did not write the letters — they were simply commenting on the weight of some of the evidence.
In fact, it is only the tribunal itself that can exert a judgement that we must accept, and even they can only judge on the basis of the evidence that came before the court — which is balancing out what different people said and judging their credibility.
Also, I am sure you are quoting the lawyer for Madam Justice Levers. Obviously, he wants to push that view — that is his job. So quoting him is not cutting it exactly, is it?
So, lawyer though I am not, I am nevertheless able to cut through the "lawyer speak" — including yours.
"Also, I am sure you are quoting the lawyer for Madam Justice Levers. Obviously, he wants to push that view — that is his job. So quoting him is not cutting it exactly, is it?"
As is clear from my original and subsequent post this was spoken by Otty QC, the counsel for the Tribunal. The lawyer for Justice Levers, wanted to go further and suggest that it was generated in-house by the Net News. One thing that remains crystal clear is that you are commenting without reading the transcript itself, and because you have clearly come to a view you are not prepared to admit anything that does not fit within that view. Let me spell it out for you. Because this is an inquisitorial (and not adversarial) proceeding the Tribunal Counsel is the equivalent of the prosecutor. He is clearly inviting the Tribunal to consider making a positive finding that Justice Levers did NOT write the letters. A prosecutor does not do that if he really believes that the person in fact did so but it cannot be proved. Now I fully I expect that you are going to continue to argue (pointlessly), but I am done.
Dessie can barley afford his bar tab – or to pay his staff – let along the Tempura millions.
I agree with big Al….Nothing but Desmond Seales making his usual mischief.
It is absolutely mind-boggling that they cannot see through this whole Net News/Desmond Seales/Barry Randall debacle. Putting a bit more thought into this, one can easily draw the conclusion that the responsiblity for the entire SPIT/Operation Tempura mess should be placed squarely on their shoulders and they should have to pay for it.