www.bermudapolice.com received the following e-mail: This is an incredible abuse of power, you should feature on your site.

• Acquitted lawyer blasts 'incompetent' police over nightmare  

An English lawyer, 22 years resident in Bermuda, wrote to the Governor complaining of Police and Department of Public Prosecutions incompetence, after he was arrested, spent 40 hours in jail, and was subsequently acquitted of charges of "unlawful prowling and indecent exposure". He proposed that the establishment of an Ombudsman was "well overdue".

Simon Farmer, a conveyancing lawyer with a Hamilton law firm, wrote his first letter of complaint to Police Commissioner Jonathan Smith on July 10, recounting the nightmare which began the previous November, and which helped convince him to plan his early departure from the island. "At about 10.35 pm on Wednesday, November 26, 2003," wrote Mr. Farmer, "I was arrested near Trimingham roundabout when walking from a friend's house on Southcourt Avenue to the Number 8 bus-stop on Rural Hill, Paget. "I was then handcuffed and subsequently detained for more than 40 hours, during which time I had my house searched, provided my fingerprints, voluntarily gave a blood sample, wrote a long and detailed account of my evening out, and co-operated in every other way."

On Novemer 28, he was charged in Magistrates' Court with unlawful prowling and indecent exposure at Panorama Apartments, although he claimed not have visited that development since 1999. Mr. Farmer was angry that the press had "clearly been 'tipped off' (no doubt by someone in your organisation)," he wrote to Commissioner Smith, "and having been photographed crossing the street to court and leaving it, I was featured prominently on that evening's television news - name, face, and charges. "Furthermore, I had my name mentioned next to the article in the following day's Internet edition of The Royal Gazette (although the article stated that I could not be named for legal reasons). This was seen in England, Canada, Australia as well as other places, no doubt. By the time I was able to telephone family and friends, they were in considerable distress at this news."

Mr. Farmer reserved particularly withering criticism for the detective sergeant in charge of his case. At the beginning of the interview in Mr. Farmer's jail cell, the detective may have departed from normal operating procedure by shouting, 'I do not want any of your shit, I know you are guilty'. "Following the search of my cottage, which revealed nothing untoward and nothing relevant to the inquiry, while on our way to deal with the finger-printing at Southside, the detective again asserted, 'I know you are guilty, Mr. Farmer.' "After I had written my statement back at the police station, and we had gone up to Prospect to do the blood sample, we went to the hospital and Point Finger Road to deliver the sample to the laboratory." At this point, Mr. Farmer suggested going to Southcourt Avenue so that he could demonstrate the route he had taken from his friend's house, but was told by the detective that that would not be necessary. He was returned to the cell, but Mr. Farmer complained that the detective "had been accompanied by an assistant and a junior all that day, and yet between them it seems they were unable to begin checking my story". Mr. Farmer had to wait until May 10 for his hearing before Magistrate Will Francis. By then, the police witness, a former policeman, "had altered virtually all of his original and rather inadequate attempts at identification".

Under questioning by Mr. Francis, the detective admitted that he had not checked any part of Mr. Farmer's statement, or spoken to any of his corroborating witnesses. He had also to admit to "a clearly irate" Mr. Francis, that the DNA sample taken from Mr. Farmer was negative. On June 1, Mr. Francis ruled that there was no case to answer. "From the news of the last couple of weeks," wrote Mr. Farmer, "it appears that a rather more plausible suspect has now been apprehended. I also gather that he may look a bit like me, and have had a restraining order made against him by his ex-wife, who lives in the immediate area, which all adds to my complaint that there was no attempt to investigate prior to my prosecution." In his letter to Commissioner Smith, Mr. Farmer asked for answers to a number of questions about the specific conduct of his case. "I have recounted these details to underscore why, after enduring six months of lurid headlines, five court appearances, legal fees, and all of the resulting personal anxiety, I have to ask some rather pointed questions: does the detective know the difference between an accusation and an investigation?; is an ex-policeman's word deemed sufficient to be able to ignore a suspect's detailed statement?; why does the law's presumption of innocence not apply to someone 'walking casually' and normally dressed along the main road?; how, in view of the more than 40 hours I spent in detention, was it not possible for the detective to contact any of my corroborating witnesses to verify my busy evening out?; has he no sense of responsibility to the Bermuda taxpayer, his paymaster?; can you now reassure the Bermuda public that this was an aberration in police procedure and practices, or is anyone in danger of being similarly treated if they happen to be passing by such an incident?"

Mr. Farmer asked that the police provide a public apology and compensation for the legal expenses incurred as the result of his prosecution being carried out without due care and attention to the details and circumstances of his case. He reported that a significant number of people in his "business and social community" found his case "extremely troubling". Commissioner Smith responded on July 14. His letter was respectful but business-like, and asked for Mr. Farmer's understanding. He told Mr. Farmer that he had read through his list of concerns and claims regarding the police and, as a result, "made certain comments and provided instructions to our Assistant Commissioner of Police, who is responsible for the operational staff in the Service, with a view to addressing certain aspects of our investigative procedures". "You will be aware that the decisions regarding which criminal matters proceed to court rest with the Director of Public Prosecutions and not the Bermuda Police Service. You will also be aware that the investigation was substantially reliant upon an identification made of you by the complainant. It is a matter of record, and the Service accepts this, that the identification did not subsequently withstand (sic) in a court of law." The Commissioner did not explain why the case against Mr. Farmer relied on identification when the offender had left DNA evidence at the scene, and Mr. Farmer's DNA was not a match. "It is not the policy of the Service to make public apologies in the aftermath of the finding of a court. Further, it is not the policy of the Service, nor is there a requirement for the Service to meet legal expenses in criminal matters. You can well appreciate, I am sure, the wider public policy and financial implications of both of these claims should they be acknowledged by the Service. "Your experience in this matter has clearly been one that you would rather not have endured, but I ask that you also appreciate how cases such as these, which are indeed rare, (where immediate identification of a suspect is made by a complainant that result in arrest ) have to be processed through the courts. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to charge and we do, of course, respect the finding of the magistrate."

Commissioner Smith assured Mr. Farmer that his letter would be brought to the attention of the Police Complaints Authority, but Mr. Farmer found the response sufficiently unsatisfactory that he wrote to the Commissioner again on September 24. In the intervening months, he had learned that, while he was in custody, the detective sergeant had attempted to tie Mr. Farmer to an even more serious case of sexual assault. He thanked the Commissioner for his prompt reply, "though the content left me without any sense of satisfaction". "Since that time, I have learned that the more serious offence, with which (the detective) was expecting to link me, and for which the blood sample was obtained and additional court dates required to allow for DNA analysis, took place on a date when I was in Europe! "I have personal travel records to prove this (copies of which I attach), my firm has employment attendance records, and the Department of Immigration should have a record of my departure on September 30, 2000, and return on October 22, 2000. Had your detective taken the trouble to do a little investigation, he could have discovered this basic fact."

Mr. Farmer took issue with the Commissioner's description of the "immediate" identification by the complainant, and again questioned the quality of the original investigation, and of the detective's competence. "You chose to use the word IMMEDIATE when describing the witness's attempt at identification. In most people's vocabulary, the word means 'next to' in time and place. In this case, the witness' fleeting, night-time observation of the offender, trouserless at the back of the Panorama Apartments, and his later observation of me 'walking casually' along the main road, normally dressed, were separated by several minutes of no eye contact, and a significant physical distance between the original and subsequent sightings. "The obvious non-sequitur of a recently-surprised, semi-naked offender reappearing minutes later, casually walking along the main road, normally dressed, somehow escaped (the detective). He did not need to be of the calibre of Sherlock Holmes to realise that something was awry.

The compounding incompetence of the Director of Public Prosecutions is another matter. "I remain disgusted and disturbed by the behaviour of the Bermuda Police Service in this case (as do many others), and as the Police Service does not provide public apologies or compensation for its mistakes, and I have no evidence of any action by the Police Complaints Authority, I do not intend to let things rest, and will be reporting to a higher authority." Three days later, Mr. Farmer took his complaint to the highest judicial authority, Governor Sir John Vereker. He enclosed the relevant letters, and identified The Royal Gazette and ZBM as the prime suspects in his public humiliation, "both without any regard for the law and convention as to the anonymity of suspects in such cases. "From the bewildered perspective of the astonished suspect, there appeared to be a general collusion in pursuit of scandal rather than any interest in establishing the truth." After denigrating the performance of the police, the DPP, "and two sections of the media" as "less than adequate for a supposedly sophisticated international business jurisdiction such as this", Mr. Farmer suggested to the Governor that, "(for) the (police and DPP) to have such scant regard for proper investigation and corroboration of the facts, with the dreadful fiasco of the Rebecca Middleton case still fresh in the public mind, is truly chilling. "If there are no effective checks and balances between one person's attempt at identification, and an alleged suspect being charged in court and exposed in the media, then such arbitrary arrest and prosecution, as I have suffered, suggests that the island is closer to a Third World police state than to a modern, liberal democracy, and anyone out walking their dog at night (or going to the bus stop) is at risk.

"For those of us here on work permits, there would then be the double jeopardy of a false accusation via the police as well as a false report on the 'sneak line' to the Department of Immigration. This is not a recipe for maintaining business confidence, nor, I think, is it acceptable to the large majority of law-abiding residents of the island. The establishment of an official ombudsman seems to be well overdue." Speaking to the Mid-Ocean News, Mr. Farmer reported that he had received a response from the Governor, and that he was satisfied that the Governor had done as much as he could do, given the qualitative realities of the situation. "I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy about the standards in (the police and DPP)," wrote the Governor last week. "I have discussed the matter with the Commissioner of Police. Let me say, first of all, that it is clearly a matter of deep regret to all concerned that you were arrested and charged with a crime you did not commit, and of which you were subsequently acquitted by the courts. "Our criminal justice system is, of course, designed precisely to ensure that those who are innocent are not convicted, and I am glad that this was the result in your case."

The Governor assured Mr. Farmer that no one was now questioning his innocence, and that the Commissioner had told him that the case "demonstrates the need for certain improvements in systems and procedures. "It is helpful that you have drawn his attention so clearly to what in your view went wrong in this case. You refer in your letter to the case for the establishment of an Ombudsman. Although the Bermuda Constitution Order makes provision for an Ombudsman, it also provides that the functions and jurisdiction of such a post should be prescribed by law; the Government of Bermuda has indicated its intention to legislate but until it has done so the post cannot be established. "Meanwhile, however, and indeed even after the post is established, the right channel for formal complaint about the Police Service is the Police Complaints Authority. I assure you, however, that the Commissioner does not intend to wait for any action (by the PCA) before making any changes in procedures that he deems necessary in light of your unfortunate experience."

Mr. Farmer said that the experience had motivated his decision to leave Bermuda. "No one I have talked to can believe that someone with the rank of detective sergeant would have pursued this case to court without checking any part of my statement or talking to any of the people I had been with that day. He made reference to 'another matter', and wrote that at the bottom of his statement, and that was the sexual assault which took place when I was in the Pyrenees!" In his letter of July 10 to Commissioner Smith, Mr. Farmer took an ironic view of his experience. "My family, friends and colleagues both here and abroad in Europe, North America, Southern Africa and Australasia are appalled at the treatment I received at the hands of the Bermuda Police and, like me, cannot believe that, after 30 years of independent travel around the globe in 100 countries and territories from Afghanistan through Nicaragua to Vietnam and Zimbabwe, and so many years of living and working on this island, the worst thing that has happened to me was the result of walking to a bus stop in Paget, Bermuda!"