Court of Appeal judges have set a date of 13 May 2025 – two weeks after the April general election – to hear an appeal of a Grand Court judge’s decision to abandon former Premier McKeeva Bush’s indecent assault trial earlier this year.
Appeal judges agreed to hold the hearing after the election, following a request from Bush and his legal team.
Grand Court Justice Stanley John in February halted a Grand Court case in which Bush was charged with indecently assaulting two female civil servants. The judge later admitted that he had made an error in stopping the entire case, stating he should only have dropped the charges relating to one of the women.
Bush had been charged with a count of indecent assault and a count of common assault against each woman, stemming from his alleged actions at a cocktail party hosted by government at The Ritz-Carlton in September 2022.
One of the women had testified in court, and in correspondence with police and her civil service bosses, that she did not believe Bush’s behaviour towards her that night – when he allegedly drunkenly gave her a love bite on her hand – had been criminal and she had not wanted to press charges.
John, in his full written judgment released five months after the February trial collapsed, said there was nothing preventing the Crown prosecution from seeking to try Bush again on the other two counts. Those related to allegations that the West Bay West MP, while intoxicated, had kissed the bare shoulders of the second woman.
Director of Public Prosecutions Simon Davis, who was also in court Tuesday, confirmed to the Compass that the appeal, brought by his office, involves all four charges that Bush had been facing in the abandoned case.
Hearing date chosen to coincide with end of election
On Tuesday, 12 Nov., after hearing submissions on a suitable date from Charles Miskin, KC, representing the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and from Bush’s lawyer Dennis Brady, Justice Sir John Goldring initially set a date for the appeal on 25 April next year, which is five days before the general election.
Bush, who was in attendance at the court, then passed a note to Brady, requesting him to ask the appeal judges if a date after the 30 April election could be chosen instead. Brady told the justices that his client would be busy campaigning and having the legal hearing in the middle of his campaign would deny his constituents the opportunity to speak with him in the run-up to the election.
The judges agreed, and set the revised date for 13 May. The hearing is expected to last for half a day.
Last month, Bush, who has spent 40 years as an elected representative of West Bay and held the positions of Cabinet minister, premier and speaker of the House, announced his intention to run again for in the upcoming election and has formed a new political group, called Organization for a Better Cayman.
Miskin, appearing via Zoom for Tuesday’s brief hearing, had urged the court to hear the appeal as soon as possible “because, if there is to be a retrial, I think it’s important to address the issues that the two female witnesses face. They waited from September 2022 until February 2024, when the matter was heard. And now here we are in November 2024 and we still don’t have a date.”
Legal aid
Brady told the appeals court justices that he had sought guidance from the Legal Aid Department in financing the appeal case in which Bush will be represented by Jerome Lynch, KC, who was also the former premier’s legal counsel in the original case.
Goldring, who is president of the three-judge Court of Appeal, told Brady, “It seems to me absolutely plain that your client is entitled to legal aid in the face of an appeal by the prosecution, assuming, obviously, there’s a financial issue, and I have no idea about that.
“On the merits, if he qualifies for legal assistance, then he should plainly have it because he is seeking to respond to an appeal being brought by the prosecution.”
The appeal judges instructed lawyers for both sides to submit their skeleton arguments on the case by 10 Jan. and their full bundle of submissions and arguments by 21 March.
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