PEOPLE’S National Party (PNP) General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell is describing the latest allegations of sexual misconduct levelled at him as “well-funded political agenda with the objective of forcing me to resign my position as general secretary”.

According to Campbell: “That would pave the way for a new GS [general secretary] to better facilitate the objective of undermining the party leader [Mark Golding], and ultimately to reverse the democratic results of last November’s internal elections.”

Campbell was responding to news which broke on Tuesday of an explosive defence filed by party activist Karen Cross in the Supreme Court in the defamation suit he has filed against her.

In her defence, Cross included signed statements, allegedly witnessed by justices of the peace, from three women making allegations of sexual misconduct against Campbell while they were minors.

But responding to the much-publicised allegations yesterday Campbell said he rejected in the strongest of terms, recent and ongoing allegations made against his character by Cross and others.

“These allegations have been circulated widely across social media platforms and covered by some traditional media houses. When [the] allegations first surfaced online, the People’s National Party referred the matter to the police. I then filed a lawsuit against Karen Cross et al for defamation, having publicly denied the allegations,” declared Campbell.

He noted that the police had reported that after extensive investigations into the claims they found no basis for the allegations and Cross provided no evidence to support her allegations.

Campbell argued that Cross filed her defence to the defamation case after the police concluded their investigations with statements that were dated before the police cleared him.

“…And most importantly, these statements were not provided to the police. Even more so, the justice(s) of the peace who allegedly witnessed these statements would be obliged under the Child Care and Protection Act to bring these matters to the attention of the police, yet the police remain unaware of any such letters.

“Having denied the allegations in the strongest of terms and based on this series of actions taken by Ms Cross to sully my reputation, I am extremely disappointed that media houses continue to carry unfounded claims,” said Campbell, while making several allegations against Cross whom he described as “a known political mercenary”.

“It is extremely unfortunate that at a time in which the national discourse has been so focused on gender-based violence, that Miss Cross and her benefactors would seek to trivialise this issue with baseless and scurrilous allegations,” said Campbell.

In the meantime, one of the attorneys representing Campbell yesterday expressed concern at the reports that repeated Cross’s allegations against Campbell.

According to Georgia Gibson Henlin, an injunction was granted against Cross and others on April 1, 2021 to prevent them from repeating the statements pending the hearing of the case.

“Karen Cross was served and was present at the hearing of the application. She did not defend the application on the basis that she now alleges neither did she apply to set aside the injunction, as she could have, on that or on any basis.

“We are, therefore, surprised that statements by unidentified persons that are attached to her defence have made their way into mainstream and social media as true or as if they have been tested for their truth. The dissemination of alleged statements to and in the media is Miss Cross’s deliberate circumvention of the court’s orders,” said Gibson Henlin.

She argued that Cross and her team could have availed themselves of the facility whereby the court protects the identity of the minors while giving her client a fair chance to respond to the allegations.

“Instead, our client was served with a redacted document which conveniently found its way to the media headlines,” added Gibson Henlin as she declared that Campbell “remains steadfast in his commitment to protect his reputation”.