The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

LAWYERS for former Cabinet minister Shane Gibson yesterday accused the Crown of engaging in “wholly improper conduct” for allegedly conducting meetings with two key prosecution witnesses and their lawyers to discuss how the evidence they would eventually give against Gibson should be “edited” or “amended”.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, lead defence attorney, said it was “wholly improper” for police to invite the prosecution’s lead witnesses to a meeting to “discuss amongst themselves” which evidence will be given against the accused, and even worse if the witnesses’ lawyers are saying “leave that bit out, put that bit in”.

Mr Fitzgerald also accused the Crown of making a “wholly inadequate disclosure” of relevant materials to the defence, such as the police diary, which, he said, the defence needs to better contest the circumstances surrounding a September 25, 2017, meeting in which police allegedly coached the two witnesses to coordinate their statements against Gibson.

However, Mr Fitzgerald said it would be “evidence of the most serious of improper conduct” and something akin to obstruction of justice if the two statements the defence have from the two Crown witnesses, dated June 28 and July 5, 2017, were taken pursuant to the September 25 meeting, and just backdated to the two aforementioned dates.

Mr Fitzgerald’s submissions came during proceedings before Justice Indra Charles concerning Gibson’s bid to have the indictment against him quashed and the case against him dismissed or stayed.

Gibson is facing trial for multiple bribery charges concerning Mr Ash. In July, however, Gibson’s lawyers filed a three-page motion calling for his case to be dismissed due to witness coaching and overarching collusion between various police and prosecution units.

Last month, Gibson’s legal team filed court documents alleging that the statements of the prosecution witnesses in question, Johnathan Ash and Deborah Bastian, have been “tainted” and are not reliable.

Additionally, the court documents alleged that both Mr Ash’s and Ms Bastian’s statements paint a picture of “unprecedented levels of witness coaching and evidence alteration” at the hands of lawyers and the Anti-Corruption Unit.

At the time, transcripts of recorded meetings in 2017 with the police, Mr Ash and Ms Bastian and their respective attorneys in the Crown’s bribery case against Gibson, were filed with an affidavit in support of Gibson’s application to have the case against him thrown out.

The transcripts detailed several meetings in 2017 that police officers ASP Thompson and Sgt 1877 Rolle, the lead investigators in the case, had with Mr Ash, Ms Bastian and their respective attorneys.

The affidavit and supported filings allege – based on the covertly recorded meetings – police engaged in a “secretive process of coaching” Mr Ash and Ms Bastian to coordinate their statements on the alleged bribery.

The transcripts also detail how the two witnesses were told what to say and what to leave out of their statements.

It is also alleged witness statements were backdated. During one meeting, police appear to tell Ms Bastian to date her statement July 25, 2017, even though she met with them in September of that year. Gibson’s attorneys argue this was done to give the “misleading” impression the statement had been made before his arraignment last August.

In a meeting that took place on September 25, 2017, ASP Thompson tells Mr Ash, Ms Bastian and their attorneys Alecia Bowe and Raymond Rolle, respectively, that they were invited back to the police station to clear up uncertainty in their previous accounts detailing a meeting with Gibson and the two witnesses.

Mr Ash had several lucrative clean-up contracts with the government and said he was owed money by the Christie administration. Ms Bastian worked with Gibson and said she and Mr Ash were friends. It is alleged the bribes were set up after a meeting by them with Gibson.

The two witnesses gave differing accounts in that September meeting on some issues, including the amount of money they allegedly agreed to give Gibson from Mr Ash’s contract payments.

After the two gave statements, ASP Thompson says they can sign off on them later that day or the next, adding she will delete some things they said and “then just clear up one or two points”.

After Mr Ash asked if he could sign his statement immediately because he had plans to travel that day, the officer said she needed at least an hour or two to “clean up” the statement. And at at one point, Ms Bowe, with the police present, tells Ms Bastian what evidence should not be given in her statement to avoid the impression that the two witnesses had “entrapped” Gibson.

Yesterday, Mr Fitzgerald said the Crown never disclosed the September 25 meeting to the defence until they revealed they knew about it, and that the police diary, which the defence previously requested and which ought to have been disclosed, still hasn’t been disclosed.

The English attorney said the allegations have since led to a “profound dispute” between the defence and the Crown, and with regards to the phone diary, submitted it shows to the defen that the Crown hadn’t previously made full disclosure.

The matter was subsequently adjourned.

On August 3, Mr Gibson was arraigned in a Magistrate’s Court on 36 bribery and extortion related charges: one count of misconduct in public office, 16 counts of bribery, two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, two counts of conspiracy to commit extortion and 15 counts of extortion – all of these concerned with Jonathan Ash.

The number of bribery and extortion related charges were later decreased to 31, though the amount he is alleged to have solicited from Mr Ash remained the same.

Then just recently, the Crown announced its decision to drop all the extortion charges against the former Golden Gates MP, with the DPP stating at the time that the decision was for the Crown to devote a “singular and simplified focus” on Gibson’s bribery charges.