… but is new battle brewing b/w D.P.P. and Reporter?

But while the D.P.P. and the Police Department have apparently come to a truce, Kirk Anderson is locked in another battle, this time of a more personal nature. Director of Public Prosecutions Kirk Anderson and Prosecutor Kamar Henry have been prominently featured in the Reporter newspaper two weeks in a row … and not in a favourable manner. In the August sixth edition, a digital picture of Henry was reprinted under the headline “Crown Counsel Kamar looks for friendship”. In the article, the unnamed reporter claimed visitors to the Hi-Five website were “not impressed” with the prosecutor’s picture. The newspaper would later defend the publication by stating: “The Reporter’s piece on Crown Counsel Kamar Henry was not about her professionalism. It was about her poor judgement in patronizing the Hi-Five website in a personal way and then giving her work address, the D.P.P.’s office, as a contact point”.

However this week, the Reporter has gone as far as devoting most of page three to reprinting private pictures of Anderson and Henry together under the headline: “The not so secret tryst- Kirk and Kamar”. There is no accompanying article, only a small paragraph at the bottom of the page which includes the statement that “the last time Anderson was abroad Henry acted as the Director of Public Prosecutions”.

When we contacted the Reporter’s Ann Marie Williams for comment on the newsworthiness of the photographs, her only response was “the pictures speak for themselves”. But in last week’s paper, the Reporter did state: “If Mr. Anderson had any aspirations to ascend to the bench, this close up picture of him and her might well do him in.”

For his part D.P.P. Kirk Anderson, in a letter to the editor of the Reporter asserts, “I have never embarrassed that office, either in the course of my personal life or of my professional responsibilities. I will not do so now by responding to an unfortunate attempt at mud slinging by your newspaper. As to my judicial aspirations, it would be both inappropriate and unprofessional for me to make a public comment on whether I have any such intention or not in any other way. Anderson goes on to state; my attorneys will handle any issue as it relates to myself with respect to your newspaper”.

The Reporter newspaper’s very public concern for the morals of prominent professionals should send shivers down plenty of spines.