Clearly upset over widespread criticisms of his office, the director of public prosecutions, Kent Pantry, has turned his attention to the messengers – the news media – and warned he would set a trap for those who leaked information from his office to the media.

“I will be deliberately leaving something, shortly. Then I will find out where the leak is coming from,” the DPP told Spanish Town Kiwanians at their meeting Thursday night in the St Catherine capital.

Pantry did not explain why he would publicly tip off people allegedly leaking information to the media that he would be setting a trap for them.

Calling the media mischievous and accusing it of making erroneous statements in some instances, he said he only accepted “constructive criticisms” of his office.

The office of the DPP has been under sustained criticisms from human rights groups in particular, for the inordinately long time it takes to ready cases for prosecution.

Asked by Kiwanians about one such case, the Crawle killings by police of the now disbanded Crime Management Unit (CMU), Pantry said the rulings had only just been made because up to March this year, Statements of Evidence were still being collected from Scotland Yard investigators, who were called in to assist local police, to determine if anyone was to be criminally charged.

The shooting last year in the rural district of Crawle, Clarendon, left four persons dead, with police claiming that there was a shoot-out and residents countering that the victims were shot in cold blood.

Following the ruling, six policemen who all served in the CMU, were last Tuesday formally charged with second degree murder.

Pantry said, when asked, that he did not think there was any leak from his office in the case of the Crawle ruling, as “a smart investigator could have pieced information together, and determine that a ruling would be made shortly”.

But he considered important to note that the story reporting the impending ruling did not name names, a departure, he said, from a previous news story which named names before the ruling was made in the fraud case involving People’s National Party (PNP) activist, Danhai Williams, and others charged on multiple counts of fraud.

Williams and several others were charged with fraud in 2002, in a case involving Operation Pride and the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC).

Pantry said the media organisation which named persons who were in fact not charged, could have been sued. According to the DPP, not all persons allegedly involved in criminal activity were charged, as in some cases individuals became witnesses for the Crown.

Pantry and his staff have long had a stormy relationship which reached its ugliest on June 30 last year when 22 prosecutors – more than 95 per cent of the staff – walked off the job for three days to protest against the Government’s failure to implement a number of measures recommended by a committee that the Public Services Commission (PSC) appointed to investigate problems at the office.

The committee, headed by attorney David Muirhead, was appointed to address the tensions which spilled into the public glare in May last year when a delegation of senior prosecutors foiled Pantry’s attempt to demote Janice Neathly, a junior prosecutor, to her previous position as a clerk of the St James Resident Magistrate’s Court. Pantry was apparently dissatisfied with Neathly’s handling of a case.

The prosecutors had insisted that Pantry had no authority to demote her and took their grouse to the PSC, which ordered that she remain in her post. However, Neathly quit shortly after the incident.

The three-day protest resulted in widespread chaos, as only three juniors were left to hold up the system which requires a contingent of over 30 prosecutors to work efficiently.

The prosecutors returned to the job after the PSC intervened and hammered out a plan aimed at:

. prioritising the public interest and a commitment to preserve, defend and enhance the integrity of the justice system;

. initiating a regime of open communication within a broadly consultative framework;

. finalising the early appointment of an independent mediator to facilitate the team-building process;

. ensuring full and consistent exercise of professional respect in the office on both sides;

. reviewing the allocation of work for coverage of duties in the circuit courts;

. guaranteeing that the PSC will continue to exercise its constitutional role to monitor, encourage and guide the implementation of the new standards and culture; and,

. implementing the recommendations of the Muirhead Committee in a timely manner and in keeping with the provisions of the (Jamaican) Constitution.

On Thursday, Pantry advised persons who disagreed with the powers of the DPP not to blame him.

“Go to the minister under which justice falls,” he said. “The DPP is in the area of justice. So if you have a problem concerning justice, go to that ministry, so that the policy makers in the ministry can determine whether there should be any changes in the operation of the DPP.”

He said the office was set up 42 years ago, and if there was a suggestion for changes to the Constitution in relation to the function of the office, policy makers could draft legislation or amend the Constitution accordingly.