KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) today said there is no evidence to be offered on all the charges that were laid against founder of the Tambourine Army Latoya Nugent.

In a media release this afternoon, the DPP who intervened and took over the conduct of the case, listed in the interest of transparency and accountability, the reasons for directing that no evidence be offered in the matter.

See the summary of the DPP’s conclusion below:1. “in making a decision as to whether or not a prosecution should continue Prosecutors are guided by the two stage test contained in A Decision to Prosecute: the Jamaican Protocol which can be found at www.dpp.gov.jm. The first test is the evidential stage which looks at whether or not there is sufficient evidentiary material on which there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. If this is satisfied the second test is the public interest stage which is whether or not a prosecution would be justified in the public interest. The evidential test must be satisfied before we can move on to the public interest test.2. There are three ingredients that must be proved by the material presented to an Investigator before a prosecution can be initiated under Section 9 of the Cybercrimes Act.They are:A. That a person used a computer to send to another person data.Send is not defined under any current legislation and as such arguably it may include the publishing/posting of material by a person to a social media site as was allegedly done in this matter by the posting of this material to Facebook.B. That the data sent is obscene or constitutes a threat or is menacing in nature. These terms are also not defined by the legislation.Material that is obscene is of a sexual nature or offends against society’s morality and tends to deprave or corrupt minds open to immoral influences and into whose hands these publications would fall. Material that is obscene will be indecent but indecent material may not qualify as being obscene as a much higher threshold is required in law to establish obscenity. Also, material will not be deemed obscene merely because it is offensive, untruthful and has the effect of or tends to damage one’s reputation.Threatening material is material that unconditionally intimates that harm/danger/punishment will befall a person and may be similar to a menace.Material that is menacing in nature is material that tends to threaten with harm or danger and may encompass material that constitutes a threat.C. AND, that the material which is either obscene or a threat or menacing in nature, or all three, or a combination of the three, was sent with the intention to harass any person or cause harm or the apprehension of harm, to any person or property.Intention may be proved by direct evidence such as statements of the suspect showing their intention or it may be inferred from all the circumstances.These three elements referred to above must all exist in order for a section 9 offence to be created.3. In the instant case, our examination of the evidentiary material presented revealed the post in question did not reach the criminal threshold of being deemed obscene nor was it threatening or menacing in nature. Though the post may be deemed indecent or offensive and has the potential to cause significant damage to reputation, this is not the legal requirement to bring it under section 9 of the Cybercrimes Act.