Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The UK courts have thrown out a pri­vate crim­i­nal case brought by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) against one of its for­mer man­agers, Dil­lian John­son.

John­son, known for his claims of ties to Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, has been liv­ing in the UK un­der hu­man­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tion since 2019. He was charged via sum­mons for of­fences un­der the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act 2003 in Wales for posts made be­tween 2022 and 2023 about an ex-em­ploy­ee and an­oth­er work­er at WASA.

In June, WASA chair­man Ravin­dra Nan­ga said the au­thor­i­ty had spent $300,000 to pur­sue the mat­ter, hir­ing UK law firm JMW So­lic­i­tors LLP, who is­sued a sum­mons to John­son on June 25.

John­son, who had pre­vi­ous­ly plead­ed “no plea” to the charges, was fac­ing a prison sen­tence of up to 12 months, a fine, or both, un­der the ma­li­cious com­mu­ni­ca­tions act 1988. If found guilty of an of­fence un­der the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act 2003, he faced a prison sen­tence of up to six months or a fine.

The mat­ter was set for tri­al on No­vem­ber 19 and 21, how­ev­er, John­son was sup­posed to ap­pear in court on No­vem­ber 8 for an up­date on dis­clo­sure.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Nan­ga said he was un­aware of the mat­ter and would have to con­fer with the UK-based at­tor­neys be­fore com­ment­ing on WASA’s next move.

John­son, when called, said the dis­missal of the mat­ter did not end the stress he un­der­went.

“This pros­e­cu­tion was ma­li­cious­ly brought in or­der to si­lence and in­tim­i­date the ex­pos­ing of cor­rupt­ed prac­tices with­in WASA and in do­ing so, en­dan­gered the lives of my neigh­bours and hun­dreds of asy­lum seek­ers whose names and per­son­al de­tails were un­law­ful­ly and wrong­ful­ly giv­en, many of whom were housed with me dur­ing my ear­li­er times go­ing through the sys­tem. I main­tain I be­lieve in the rule of law and rest as­sured, this is far from over.”