Martin still facing trial

(CNS): Despite the rather cryptic statement from the Governor Stuart Jack last week suggesting that the issues surrounding the entry into the Cayman Net News offices, which involved senior police officers and employees of the newspaper, were to be concluded, the former Sister Islands MLA and Net News reporter Lyndon Martin has told CNS that he has not yet received any notification that the remaining two charges against him have been dropped.

Martin was first arrested in March of this year on the day that the Governor and the Senior Investigating Officer of the Special Police Investigation Team (SPIT) Martin Bridger announced that the former Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan, Deputy Commissioner Rudolph Dixon, Chief Superintendent John Jones had all been suspended from duty or, as it was it was described at the time, “placed on required leave.” The Governor also announced at that specially convened media briefing that a team of detectives from Scotland Yard had been in the Cayman Islands operating undercover since September 2007 investigating allegations by Martin that Deputy Commissioner Anthony Ennis was in a corrupt relationship with Desmond Seales the owner of Cayman Net News.

At that time of his arrest  there were some seventeen charges made against Martin, which were later dropped to 12 and then more recently just two. When he appeared in court last month, Martin was charged with the Common Law offence of doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of public justice and the statutory offence of falsely accusing a person of a crime.

Martin has entered a not guilty plea to both charges and told CNS that while he has wrestled with the Governor’s 4 December statement to try and work out exactly what he meant by “must be concluded properly and with dispatch”, if the remaining charges against him were not dropped he had no doubts that his innocence would be easily demonstrated in the court room if it still does go to trial in March of next year as currently planned.

“I am confident that the absurdity of these charges will be exposed in the courtroom,” Martin said. He also indicated that the fact that most of the original counts against him, which included burglary and other offences, had been dropped was significant. “I think it is important that they have already dropped ten of the charges against me leaving these two charges which are essentially the same issue and clearly not true.”

While there is every indication that these charges will be dropped as well, Martin is still prepared for a courtroom showdown and has engaged the services of a senior British Council who is an expert in corruption issues and familiar with the Cayman Islands courts.

If Martin does go to trial, SIO Bridger will have to demonstrate that Martin did not actually believe the accusation he was making against Ennis to Kernohan and therefore doing so maliciously or for another purpose. Martine does not have to show that his accusations were true but merely that he had good reason to suspect they were. Martin insists that at the time he certainly did have every reason to believe the accusations he had made and can easily demonstrate that. He also noted that he had absolutely no reason to falsely accuse Ennis of anything.

Moreover, it also appears that not only did Martin believe his accusations, but so did Jones and Kernohan, two very experienced and senior police officers, as well as John Evans, another Net News employee, Larry Covington, who has oversight of the UK’s overseas territories police services. Even the Governor reportedly believed it and for several weeks members of SPIT were also following the evidence that Martin says he had given to Kernohan.