The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

FREEDOM!” shouted Rodney Moncur yesterday on the Magistrate’s Court’s steps moments after his “grossly indecent” picture posting-case was dismissed by the presiding magistrate.

Magistrate Constance Delaney ruled that the prosecution had not established a case to have the matter tried before a jury in the Supreme Court on the “committing a grossly indecent act” charge brought against the 57-year-old Market Street resident.

Mr Moncur thanked the Magistrate before requesting that he be provided a copy of her ruling so that he could restore his “good name”.

He further asked the court to order that police destroy, “in my presence”, fingerprint samples they took from him. The magistrate replied that she had no problem assisting him with either request.

However, she noted that she could not order that the prints be destroyed in his presence. She told him that the copy of the ruling, which would have to be typed and checked before being issued, would be ready near the end of the day because her judgment had been handwritten.

Call For Resignation

Mr Moncur left the courtroom through the double doors of the Nassau and South Streets complex, with his loved ones and friends, nearly a year after he was taken through the same doors accused of a committing a criminal act.

Mr Moncur told The Tribune that he was “happy as one of Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for New Providence that I was able to finally enter a court where I think that I did receive justice.”

Immediately afterwards, he added: “The Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade must resign.”

“A serious injustice has taken place in this trial in which I was falsely accused, falsely arrested, hauled before the court, and wrongly charged with a criminal offence that the police, Inspector Mark Barrett, under cross-examination, admitted that he knew that I never broke into the Rand Lab of the Princess Margaret Hospital.

“I said to the magistrate, ‘if you accept my argument that the COP and Mark Barrett are gangsters – that was my submission – acquit me. If you have doubts that they have committed gangsterism against me, send me to the Supreme Court’.”

Moncur claimed that he has always been faithful and loyal to the Commissioner of Police to the best of his ability “and he committed a fundamental breach in his responsibilities when he told The Tribune that I was the source of information which I provided to him”.

“I provided those information in my capacity as one of her Majesty’s JP’s and when the Commissioner of Police is telling the media and telling the public who’s the source of his information, that is gangsterism. And he should be invited by the Prime Minister to resign.”

Mr Moncur added that he is proposing to sue “because this injustice should not be allowed, but I thank God that notwithstanding my head has been bruised, yet I stand”.

He added: “And no matter what they try to do to me, no matter what lies and no matter what case they manufacture against me, I believe in the God of Israel and my God Jehovah has delivered me today from mine enemies. But Greenslade must resign and I’m heading to submit my letter to His Excellency the Governor General so I can give him a detailed accounting of what has been taking place against me.”

Prosecution’s Case

Mr Moncur, who was arraigned on April 4, 2013, faced a single charge of committing a “grossly indecent act”. It is claimed that between March 1 and March 29, he “intentionally and unlawfully” published a photograph of the body of Jamie Smith.

Moncur opted to be tried by a jury in the Supreme Court rather than by a magistrate. He was granted $7,500 bail, which he posted the following day.

He was later told that the Attorney General’s Office had decided to hold a preliminary inquiry in the magistrate’s court.

Corporal Olsen, who sat in on Mr Moncur’s March 30 record of the interview with Inspector Mark Barrett, testified on what he witnessed during the 8:35am interview when Mr Moncur was questioned under caution.

The High-Tech Crime Unit officer claimed that Mr Moncur admitted to posting indecent images on Facebook, but denied breaking into the Rand morgue at Princess Margaret Hospital to get them.

He added that Mr Moncur had declined to give a written statement and did not wish to read over the record of the interview.

Mr Moncur asked the officer if an alibi was offered during the interview, to which the officer said: “You said something like you would not divulge your sources.”

Mr Moncur then suggested to the witness that he told both officers to contact Health Minister Dr Perry Gomez for his alibi.

Officer Noel agreed with the suggestion, but when asked if he had verified the alibi, the officer said: “It’s not my duty.”

He also admitted that his report did not reflect that an alibi had been offered.

Last month, Inspector Barrett gave evidence in magistrate’s court no 2 of his involvement in the case from his arrest of Mr Moncur to an interview in police custody concerning pictures posted on Facebook.

In cross-examination, it was suggested to the officer that he went against standard practice by arresting him without first having obtained all of the facts, which included the undertaker’s statement.

When Inspector Barrett replied to the suggestion, the magistrate asked him if he got the statement from the undertaker after arresting Mr Moncur. “Yes, your worship,” he replied.

Moncur’s Submission

Last week, in response to the case against him, Moncur asked “what law did I break?”

After Inspector Mark Barrett’s evidence was read into the record, Mr Moncur informed the court that he was ready to make his “no case” submissions.

He did so after setting up a make-shift poster of the pictures - which he claimed were not indecent based on the charge the Crown brought against him and the circumstances surrounding how the photos were acquired.

In three of the nine photos visible on the white poster, Mr Moncur is standing next to the body of a dead man.

Mr Moncur asserted that he was given permission by the family and undertaker to photograph Smith’s body and said if police had done a proper investigation, he would not be before the courts.

He also addressed the particulars of the alleged offence, which law lists as a misdemeanour, if convicted, of committing the “grossly indecent act in public or where the public is able to see said act”.

He said the charge, to the minds of the average person and in the country’s own law books, depicts as a sexual act being committed even though it was not the case in this matter as none of the photos he published exposed Smith’s private parts.

Mr Moncur said that while some would consider the pictures disturbing or gruesome, they could not be categorised by definition or by law, as indecent.

Distateful - Not Indecent

In her ruling, Magistrate Delancey noted that in order for the court to determine if such a charge had been committed, “the court must examine the ordinary meaning of the words in the absence of a statutory definition.”

“The adverb ‘grossly’ may be defined as ‘totally, glaringly or utterly’. If the court were to substitute one of these words for ‘grossly’, the phrase may read ‘totally indecent act.”

“The key words in this phrase, however, is ‘indecent’ which may be interpreted as ‘obscene, dirty, filthy, raunchy, or vulgar’. In the context of the Code (law), it takes on a sexual undertone, being affront to moral decency.”

“The alleged particulars did not disclose that the defendant exposed his person or any part thereof. It was alleged that by posting photographs online of the body of the late Jamie Smith, he committed a grossly indecent act.”

The Magistrate referred to authority cases before addressing the photos themselves which Mr Moncur, the court noted, admitted to photographing and posting online.

“The photographs appear ‘ghoulish’ and do not show any untoward, no exposure of the genitals... While I found the photographs distasteful, I did not find the same indecent within the scope of section 490 or section 212(2) of the Code. The defendant is hereby discharged pursuant to section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” the magistrate ruled.

She then ordered that the Commissioner of Police destroy all records relating to “such measurements, photographs, fingerprint and palm print impressions of the defendant taken in connection with the matter”.