The corruption and wiretapping scandal that first rocked the police force four years ago was effectively brought to a close Tuesday, when former Cable & Wireless Jamaica employee, Devon Francis, was cleared of breaching the Public Utilities Act on the basis of a lack of evidence.

Francis, who is in his forties, was charged with having used the works of Cable & Wireless in a manner inconsistent with the company’s expressed or implied authority, and tampering with the works of a public utility company. He was alleged to have committed those offences between June and August of 2001 and has been before the court since June of 2002, his attorney, Garth Lyttle, told the Observer.

Francis left the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court a free man after Lyttle told the court that his client had acted with the company’s permission.

“We served, on the prosecution, a document which showed that the telephone company who employed Devon Francis gave Devon Francis a worksheet order to go to the Musgrave Road premises to repair the telephone. So, he was legitimately there,” the attorney told the Observer after his client walked free. “Yet, they turned around and prosecuted him. (And) this is why there was no statement from the telephone company officials implicating him… There was no complaint from Cable & Wireless to support this allegation.”

The crown had been relying on the testimony of a police officer who, Lyttle said, has since retired from the force and had “gone about his business”.

As to the charge that his client had tampered with the works of a public utility company, the attorney said there simply was no grounds for it since Cable & Wireless, with 82 per cent of its shares in the hands of the private sector, could not be deemed a public sector company.

The issue first grabbed headlines in October, 2000 when Deputy Commissioner of Police Owen Clunie admitted that he was under investigation for drug-running and complained that his phones had been tapped. The eavesdropping, Clunie said, was being done by the Civilian Intelligence Unit that had been set up at 62 Lady Musgrave Road in September, 1999.

The unit was established by Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes to probe drug trafficking in the island. It was led by Roderick McGregor, a former undercover operations man employed to American and British law enforcement agencies, and staffed by four civilians along with seven police officers.

In 2001, as investigations into Clunie’s alleged involvement in the Colombian drug trade intensified, director of public prosecutions, Kent Pantry, ordered that McGregor and two C&W Ja employees – including Francis – be charged.

The other C&W employee, Suzette Gibson, had the charges against her dropped around the middle of last year.

As for McGregor, he left the island amidst reported threats against his life and has not returned to answer the charges against him. Clunie, who was sent on leave during the period of the investigations, has since been cleared of any involvement in the illegal drug trade and has returned to the police force.

In the wake of the scandal, during which speculation ran high that Prime Minister P J Patterson and other government officials had been victims of illegal wiretapping, Parliament passed into law procedures for the use of wiretaps. The law, passed in early 2002, allows the security forces to apply to a Supreme Court judge for an order to intercept the electronic communication of people suspected of involvement in the illegal drug trade, gun running, money laundering, terrorism, murder, abduction or kidnapping, and treason.