Colin Coxall Affair. In the interest of printing both sides of the complex story we have sometimes had to print statements which were clearly self-serving and lacking in veracity.

As an example, we point out yesterday's front page stories in our sister paper Mid-Ocean News and in the Bermuda Sun . The two stories are directly opposite and contradictory. They are both there for the public to judge.

Last Monday we printed the text of the second report on the Bermuda Police Service by the Inspector of Dependent Territories Police, Lionel Grundy. That report made it very clear just how much Mr. Grundy thought the Police Service had improved during the commissionership of Colin Coxall. This newspaper and Mr. Coxall have had to endure strong suggestions that the report was leaked to us by Mr. Coxall. That is not true.

No matter what has been said subsequent to our printing the report, we know that it was to be used by the Governor and by the Minister of Home Affairs in support of reappointing Colin Coxall to a second term as Commissioner of Police. It is also true that both the Governor and the Minister confirmed to Colin Coxall that he would be appointed a second time. Within weeks Operation Cleansweep took place and the Minister did a complete about-face and asked for Mr. Coxall to be removed.

But there is something of much greater importance. The excuse given by the Minister for pushing Mr. Coxall out of Bermuda has been that he failed to produce a plan to identify his successor. Mr. Edness has been quoted as saying that time and again Mr. Coxall was asked to produce such a plan and did not do so.

Yet Mr. Edness was present at a top level meeting at Government House when Mr.

Coxall and other senior officers made an elaborate presentation complete with graphics setting out the options for succession in the Police Service. Mr.

Edness has also read the second Grundy Report which was pessimistic about finding anyone in the present Police Service to fill the two top posts in any hurry. In addition to that, Mr. Edness read the appendix to the second Grundy Report which detailed the capabilities or lack thereof of some ten senior officers. If he ever asked for a succession report he know that there was great difficulty and grave danger of promoting someone beyond their capacity.

Mr. Edness knew the problems and he knew that Mr. Coxall had no magic wand with which to produce a trained Bermudian Commissioner in a hurry.

We must believe that the accusation against Mr. Coxall is a red herring to cover the fact that Government wanted Mr. Coxall out of Bermuda for political reasons resulting from Operation Cleansweep. We suspect that Government was terrified that a large number of drug enforcement officers, especially outside drug enforcement officers with no Bermuda bias, might turn up more than Government could face.