:I have chosen to start this piece by revealing a few facts of a highly personal nature which I have never hitherto discussed in public and about which I have seldom talked privately. I think it its time to open up on these matters, because I truly believe them to be relevant to ultimate subject matter of this piece.

First, Canada. I love Canada. I first saw that beautiful country in 1967 when I left Bermuda for the very first time, at the age of 17, to start pre-medical studies at Mount Allison University. It is highly possible that, had I not discontinued medical studies in Canada and taken up the study of law in the University of London instead, I would have become a Canadian and Bermuda would have forever taken a place, albeit with fondness, only in my rear view mirror.

When I encountered personal and professional difficulties in Bermuda about a decade ago, I decided to spend as much of my time as possible in Canada. I was thinking seriously about admission to the Ontario Bar. Perhaps I made the mistake of saying that to one or two people too many in Bermuda. Anyway, after a few years, about six years ago, I visited Canada again, this time to attend and to speak at the 30th-year reunion of my university graduating class. I was really looking forward to seeing my many Canadian friends after so many years; and I was honoured to have been specially invited to attend the reunion of the class of which I was once President.

I never made it to the reunion.

Instead, I was asked by immigration officials, upon my arrival in Canada, whether I had ever been “convicted anywhere in the world of any criminal offence.” At that time I had never even been charged with, or accused of, any criminal offence, and at the time I had no real reason to expect to be so charged.

Naturally, therefore, I replied that I had not. As the direct result of my answer, I was immediately told by the immigration official that I was “lying” and that I had, according to “clear information”, been convicted in Bermuda of serious criminal offences. She continued that, as I had made a fraudulent and false representation to the Canadian immigration authorities, I was to be immediately placed under arrest.

I was handcuffed and taken away at midnight to a nearby “correctional facility” – nice phrase, but it was nothing less than a prison – where I remained incarcerated for almost a week.

On the next day, I was allowed to make a collect telephone call to Bermuda in which I asked the Hon. Dame Lois Browne Evans and her then partner (now the Hon). Michael Scott to intercede on my behalf with the British authorities through Government House in Bermuda. After 5 days a letter was produced by the office of the Commissioner of Police to confirm that I had indeed told the truth: I had never been convicted of any offence in Bermuda or elsewhere. After a hearing before the Immigration Appeal Tribunal in Canada, the decision to charge me and thereafter to deport me was, of course, reversed. This did not prevent the official who had initially arrested me from threatening physical force if I refused to provide fingerprints for their records. It was a horrible remembrance of what had been a wonderful experience 30 years previously.

I was determined to find out how this blatantly false information, this lie, had found itself placed on the Canadian computer.

Ultimately, and on clear and compelling evidence, I came to discover that this false information had been supplied by a Bermuda police officer. Recently I have had reason to conclude - again from clear and compelling evidenc e- that this was the very same police officer who caused the copying and apparent theft of the entire dossier relating to the so-called “BHC Scandal” which is now being used to assassinate by innuendo, and nothing more, the characters of Premier Dr the Hon. Ewart Brown and others within the ranks of Progressive Labour Party leadership. <>I seldom visit Canada anymore. I travelled to Halifax last year to speak, and to sing, at the funeral of my best friend’s mother. She had been like a mother to me over many years. Her name was Mrs Rose Jollymore, the first “white lady” who had taken into her home this young black Bermudian boy whose acquaintance with whites had been carefully circumscribed by the realities of 1950s and 1960s Bermudian racial and social segregation. Because the false information has apparently remained on the Canadian computer, uncorrected by the Bermuda Force one of whose officers first supplied it, I was at that time held in custody for over seven hours before, without apology, I was released into the maritime night to attend dear Rose’s funeral.

I still love Canada. I always will. I will not, however, be visiting Canada at any time in the foreseeable future.

Second, google. Google is what is known in computer parlance as a “search engine.” What a wonderful and awesome thing is modern technology. If you “google” the name “Julian Hall” to find out if there is any information on the world wide web about me or anyone else who bears my name, you will find thousands of “hits” attached to that name. For the past eight or more years, the very first of those thousands of hits will be reference to me. And it is not pleasant. You will be directed to a website created by a British-born former Bermuda police officer who, having left the Police Force under something of a cloud, decided apparently to copy and to steal confidential documents relating to a criminal case in which I was once professionally involved and to use this website to conduct what can only be regarded as his own twisted personal vendetta against various senior Bermuda Police officers, including the current Commissioner Mr George Jackson, and (for reasons best known to him) myself.

By innuendo and innuendo alone, the reader of this website will be invited to believe that I was somehow involved in the laundering of millions of dollars of drug money through Bermuda.

Never mind that there is absolutely not one iota of substance or truth in the innuendo raised on this website concerning me. It is indeed innuendo, because none of it even rises to the level of actual allegation.

Never mind that the official Bermuda Police logo and name appear on this bogus website, giving it the full appearance of authenticity.

Never mind that I have personally complained, with no effect, to successive Bermudian Police Commissioners (except the current incumbent Mr George Jackson, who himself is defamed on the website) and asked that action be taken against this former officer; or that, at the very least, he be prevented from using official Bermuda Police documents and the official Bermuda Police seal and logo in this way.

Never mind, lastly, that just about every time I encounter a potential business opportunity overseas, the next meeting is called for the purpose of having me “explain” the contents of this bogus “Bermuda Police” website, and usually any hope of advancing my personal business fortunes disintegrates into thin air.

Not very long ago, but before the Progressive Labour Party “came into power” – a phrase which is simply wrong – former Premier the Hon. Alex Scott, in his then capacity of Shadow Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, uncovered clear evidence, in the form of various leaked e-mails and other documents, of something both curious and disturbing.

Alex Scott came into possession of, and he produced, clear evidence of the existence of a secret cabal within the Bermuda Police Service, made up apparently entirely of white ex-patriates and “status Bermudian” police officers of varying ranks, who, by their own admission, aligned and identified themselves with the Ku Klux Klan, otherwise known as “The KKK”. The documents which were disclosed to him, mostly copies of communications within the Bermuda Police Communications and Operations Division (“COMOPS”), revealed a manifestly racist philosophy and agenda. Many were blatantly and scurrilously racist in both tone and content. They sounded more like police communications from a Sherriff’s office in Mississippi, circa 1958. Not surprisingly, Alex Scott viewed the existence of such a group with alarm, and thought that the Bermudian community would share his concerns. Quite properly, he raised questions in Parliament and in the media seeking to establish whether, and to what extent, that apparently secret group’s self-identification with such an infamous and historically destructive white supremacist organisation as the KKK, had any effect on law enforcement and on policing in Bermuda. Bermudians preferred, on the whole, to dismiss the evidence produced by Alex Scott as little more than a sick and unfunny joke, in much the same way as many preferred, years later, to regard the former Elbow Beach executive chef’s notion of poisoning Premier Brown’s dinner plate.

Ultimately, Alex Scott didn’t get very far with his enquiries. He was glibly accused of “paranoia”, “fear-mongering”, “whipping up hysteria” and being unable to “take a joke”. At one point, it was suggested that Mr Scott had actually fabricated those documents; a suggestion which I thought then, and think now, to be so typically unfair of this cannibalistic environment we call the Bermudian body politic. The Bermudian political establishment, which -to be fair- included the usual cadre of timid, in-denial, self-hating blacks within the Labour Movement, thought that on the whole Mr Scott’s revelations were unworthy of any detailed scrutiny; it would just “cause trouble”. The whole question of a detailed inquiry into police involvement in politics just withered on the vine and died.

It is a pity that it did.

The presumed KKK cabal within the Bermuda Police Force indeed did, and as far as I can see still does, exist. It is alive and kicking and working feverishly on the destruction of black leadership in Bermuda. This is the White Supremacy Agenda writ large.

And there is clear evidence that some of these officers have reported directly to Government House, bypassing in some cases their superiors on the Police Force. Yes, Virginia, there really are Caucasian, racially motivated, officers within the Bermuda Police Force who are determined to bring down black leaders in Bermuda and who actually see theirs as a campaign of righteous purpose and direction.

They know who they are; and what they are doing.

So now, let us fast forward to matters currently at hand.

In February of this year, when Wayne Furbert was hanging on to the leadership of the UBP by what can only be described as a slender reed and Premier Ewart Brown was moving politically like a hot knife through butter and enjoying both impressive poll results and the enthusiastic support of the PLP rank and file, I was invited by a reporter for RG Magazine to make my own personal predictions about the PLP’s prospects at the next General Election. Amongst other things, I said the following to my interviewer:

“I accept that Dr. Brown is riding high in popularity at this time, and with justification, some of his incumbent MPs are vulnerable for one reason or another. And I also expect that the UBP machine, though considerably shaken by their recent public spat, hasn’t entirely broken down.

Look for a few so-called “scandals”, the usual establishment attempt to use the police and the prosecuting authorities …”

Bermuda’s current constitutional arrangements are so outdated that I can safely say that, under the current rules, the Government cannot and does not “govern”. We have outgrown this Constitution. But every attempt to get the conversation started is met with cynicism and obstruction. The Governor and all White Supremacist prefer “stability”, it seems, to progress.

As to this so-called “BHC scandal” I say again that the real scandal is the carefully orchestrated plan to use the police dossier for election campaign purposes. UBP leaders were shown those documents many months ago; and if pressed I shall reveal who showed it to them.

Bermuda, like most of the rest of “civilised” society, is meant to be founded on “the rule of law”. If you put 12 lawyers together in the same room and ask them to define the rule of law, you will probably hear twelve different definitions. Nonetheless, I would like to believe that the following principles would be common to all:

• The rules of society are established by laws duly and democratically passed by that society (“the law”)

• No man (or woman) is above the law

• No person can be adjudged guilty of a criminal offence unless the proven facts of the case amount to a criminal offence under the law.

• An accused person is entitled, under as a constitutional right, to the presumption of innocence.

• An accused person is NOT to be regarded as Guilty of any offence unless and until his guilt has been proven before a fair and impartial tribunal or jury considering only the admissible evidence against him, and applying the duly enacted legal rules which are put in place to safeguard his right to a fair trial.

That is, at least, my understanding of the rule of law. I anticipate that most of my former legal colleagues will, albeit in some cases grudgingly, agree.

There is nothing complicated, at least in any of this. The most important issue is “fairness”. We don’t declare a person to be a criminal or to have broken the law unless he is proven to be guilty of a criminal offence. The police don’t get to decide who is guilty of a criminal offence. That is for the jury or the magistrate. The function of the police, and it is a most important function, is to investigate; and to do so within the rules established by law. The police are certainly not entitled to copy confidential documents amassed in the course of their investigations and to hand them furtively to Opposition politicians and/or to journalists. When the Police investigation is complete, the police are expected to present the evidence that they have assembled in the form of statements and exhibits to the independent office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (“DPP”) who, under the Constitution of Bermuda has the duty to determine whether the evidence presented establishes that there is a case for the accused person to answer. As the Middleton case decision rendered by Chief Justice Richard Ground recently re-enunciated, the DPP is answerable to no one in the exercise of this most important function. It must be this way. As to publicity, accused persons must be tried in courts of law, not courts of public opinion, and certainly not in newspapers on the television. We are meant to safeguard the fairness of the criminal justice process by ensuring that there is no publicity of the evidence, facts and circumstances after the DPP has made the decision to initiate a prosecution, except for a fair and balanced news account of the proceedings at the trial. And, certainly, the police are prohibited from releasing, before there is an appearance in court, details of their investigation, particularly the identity of the person charged and the state of the evidence against him.

The proposition that “No man is above the law” carries with it the principle that no man is below the law, either.

Consider all that I said yesterday regarding White Supremacy and how it works its evil magic on the collective Bermudian psyche. I said yesterday, and I must repeat, that the real “scandal” has less to do with the contents of the stolen and confidential police dossier concerning the BHC, and more to do with the actions and motivations behind those who stole and are now seeking to manipulate the documents.

The battle is joined. But times have changed. This is 2007, not 1967 (when I first went to University in Canada) or even 1977 (when had the privilege of working with Lois Browne Evans in an attempt to save the lives of Burrows and Tacklyn).

I really believe, Bermuda, that we are ready for some serious home truths. I say only this to those who are behind this very obvious and transparent plot:

Beware the law of unintended consequences! You really don’t understand who and what you are dealing with, and the degree to which, as we used to say in school, “your slip is showing”.