Bush calls for public inquiry into DPP and CoP

(CNS): Following his acquittal on historic rape charges on Monday, veteran politician McKeeva Bush MP called for a public commission of inquiry into the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and the Office of the Commissioner of Police. He said the inquiry was needed, not just because of the failed cases against him but also because of other prosecutions that should never have reached the courts.

After yesterday’s verdict, the judge told Bush he could leave the dock as he was “forever cleared” of the charges in the case. But before he stepped out of the courtroom, Bush announced that he would be calling for the commission of inquiry and wanted the prosecutor who presented the case against him to be a subject of that inquiry.

Eloise Marshall KC, who is based in the UK, was instructed by the ODPP to avoid the potential issue of bias. She stated during the trial that she had no connection to local politics and was therefore more able to prosecute the case objectively than someone living here.

But the former premier and speaker has implied that the UK has used the offices of the CoP and DPP to deliberately target him. When he took the stand during the trial, Bush suggested that the prosecutors had put the victim in this case up to it. He also contends that he is not the only person to have been improperly charged for crimes he did not commit by the current and previous DPP.

Outside the courthouse, as Bush spoke to the local media about the motion he plans to take to parliament to call for the public inquiry, he made it clear that he believes he has been deliberately targetted by the authorities for many years, and that he is not alone.

“It is time for this persecution to stop… and this didn’t just happen to McKeeva, you know,” he said, adding that there were far too many cases brought by the DPP that he believes have fallen short of the required legal standard.

Bush has drafted a private member’s motion that will be seconded by Chris Saunders MP (BTE), who currently sits as an independent on the opposition benches. Bush said he plans to bring this motion at the next meeting of parliament, which was postponed as a result of Hurricane Beryl.

He said the DPP was spending money — which he has to vote for — on poor cases that the office ended up losing. Reading the motion to the press outside the courthouse, he said that there was “tremendous concern about corruption in the DPP office”, which was illustrated by the cases being prosecuted.

Bush added that there was “widespread alarm and grief in the belief of an unholy, inappropriate and illegal connection with the DPP… the governor’s office, the commissioner of police and some police officers with their practices, processes and abuses”. As a result, he called for parliament to order an independent, fully funded commission that would report its findings to the premier’s office.

Although he sits on the government’s backbench, Bush said that he had not yet discussed the motion with Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly. He said he was going to table it, and then the House can do what it wants with it.

“But I am going to have my say on it and what my belief is,” he said, stressing that his concern was not with the courts or the judiciary but with the last three governors, Stuart Jack, Duncan Taylor and Martyn Roper, and their inappropriate interference with prosecutors and the police.

“We have to have proper prosecuting services in this country, and this office of the DPP is not that. We are at the will of somebody else,” Bush added.

Despite the legal issues that Bush has dealt with this year, his previous conviction for assault in 2020, and his previous declarations that he would not be running for office in the 2025 elections, when CNS asked him if he would stand in the 2025 elections, he did not say no categorically. He said that while his family no longer wanted him to run and he thinks he is unlikely to do so, he did not rule out the possibility.

Bush said he will hold a meeting on the proposed public inquiry at the ALT parking lot in George Town at 8:00pm on Thursday night and a second meeting in West Bay on Saturday night at Ebanks Road Park in his West Bay West constituency.

Watch McKeeva Bush read out his proposed PMM about the commission of inquiry below:

See full coverage of the Bush trial below:

• Bush found not guilty in historic rape case
• Bush not immune from prosecution, says crown
• ‘A bunch of you put her up to this’ Bush tells prosecutor
• ‘The truth will come out’ Bush told police when charged
• Witness says she did not ‘make up’ Bush rape allegation
• Bush raped woman in mangrove clearing, crown tells jury

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