PRESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release

Issued by: Raynard Rigby, National Chairman
Date: Monday the 17th January, 2005

FNM’S ATTEMPTS TO INSPIRE HYSTERIA ARE DESTRUCTIVE
Roberts Absolutely Exonerated… The Matter Is Over
 

The hysterical headline in The Freeport News of Monday 17th January, 2005 ‘Licence To Rape’ is part of an obvious and concerted attempt by the Free National Movement and its allies to destructively twist the absolute exoneration of Bradley Roberts in a way that is dangerous to Bahamian society.  These attacks have been irresponsibly aided and abetted by certain sections of the media as evidenced by the overly sensational and distasteful way in which this matter has been covered.

Frederick Smith ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself for speaking foolishness about “a licence to rape” given to anyone in the decent, Christian society that is The Bahamas and; The Freeport News ought to be doubly ashamed for printing such utter garbage.  Their behaviour is irresponsible in the extreme.  The Bahamian public expects better of its institutions and would be community leaders.

Prime Minister the Right Honourable Perry G. Christie has stood as an unchallenged beacon of moral, ethical and politically responsible behaviour through more than 30 years in public life in The Bahamas; and the Progressive Liberal Party rebukes Frederick Smith and his wanton attack on Mr. Christie and the Government as craven and ethically suspect.

Protectors of human rights are supposed to work for due process and the rights of the individual.  To become a Cabinet Minister does not mean that you lose the right to due process and the rights of the individual in law.  Yet here we have this so-called human rights champion attacking the Government because one of its members was allowed the due processes of law to which he is entitled.

The PLP has been fighting for the rights of the individual and for the rights of women for more than half a century and will not be lectured by someone who has shown himself to be a summer and part-time soldier in the campaign for human rights.

There is no charge against Mr. Roberts.  There was no rape.  The matter is at an end.  The PLP rejects the sensationalist approach, which would permit open season on respected people in public life who are accused without foundation in unsubstantiated allegations that do not even convince the police and the professional prosecutors of their worthiness.  It would be a dangerous precedent for the conduct of Bahamian society.

The Government has fulfilled its duty to allow the country’s time tested systems that deal with criminal allegations to work without influence or interference that may have been interpreted as pressure.

The Police in an independent and democratic society have the duty and responsibility to conduct their investigations in the best way that they see fit, without interference or influence.  This is the way it works.  It is an utter and obvious nonsense that a well known person in society should be immediately arrested and thrown into a cell once an allegation is made against him or her, for the sole purpose of demonstrating that he is no different than an ordinary citizen.  Just as it would be utter and obvious nonsense that a not-so-well-known person be spared investigation and incarceration just to show even handedness on the part of the police.  It doesn’t work that way.

Frederick Smith’s wild, unfounded and aberrant conclusions are obviously for political effect and part and parcel of a self-serving agenda.  One expects better of someone schooled in the law.  It appears that Frederick Smith would do anything, and say anything, to grab heaqdlines.

The people of Grand Bahama and The Bahamas will reject this utter nonsense and will rightly condemn Frederick Smith and his loose and irresponsible talk, which is calculated for pure and brazen political mileage.