Champagnie: Police delay in seeking footage may doom R Hotel probe
R HOTEL attorney Peter Champagnie says some of the footage from a crucial no-movement day closed-circuit television recording may have been lost.
The police were on Tuesday expected to access footage from the New Kingston hotel captured on September 14, the no-movement day on which nowresigned Agriculture Minister Floyd Green and others attended a birthday party.
“It is regrettable that the police waited so long to seek this order because, as I understand it, some data, their shelf life is not very long and it may have been overwritten,” Champagnie told The Gleaner.
He said, initially, investigators had requested that the footage be preserved under the Disaster Risk Management Act (DRMA).
However, there is no such provision in law.
Champagnie said some time elapsed before the police appropriately submitted their request under the Cybercrimes Act.
On September 27, Deputy Commissioner Fitz Bailey told RJR’s ‘Hotline’ programme that the police first visited the hotel on September 17, three days after the controversial party.
The investigators reportedly verbally requested the footage but were told that the hotel had to consult with its attorney.
Bailey said the police wrote to the hotel on September 20, formally requesting the closedcircuit footage and followed up with an email two days later and with a call on September 23.
But Champagnie contends that the proper request for the R Hotel footage was made two weeks after the September 14 event.
The amended request under the appropriate Act was submitted “a couple days ago”, he added.
“I’m lamenting the fact that the police didn’t act any quicker because we were always willing to hand over,” said Champagnie.
The attorney explained that the hotel had to go to court to seek clarification because it was of the view that the first request by the police was vague and was not grounded in the correct legislation.
Following the controversial party, Green, in his resignation letter to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, admitted that his attendance at the event with other maskless persons was “wrong”.
Bailey has suggested that investigators might not be able to bring charges against Green because an August 11 amendment to the DRMA gives unconditional exemption for certain categories of individuals, including parliamentarians.