Bernard: ‘Crane was a drunkard, sue me if you dare!’

CHAIRMAN of the Piarco Airport Commission of Inquiry, retired Chief Justice Clinton Bernard, yesterday said that the late Justice Richard Crane was  a drunkard. Bernard  challenged, “Sue me, sue me if you dare,”as he made the allegation.

He became highly emotional, with his voice cracking as he promised to reveal the truth about the Crane matter if “(you) tempt me,” saying for many years people have been uncharitable and unkind to him. But Bernard said he knew as long as he lived “somebody up there (pointing skyward) loves Clinton Bernard.” Bernard’s comments were made in response to Newsday’s editorial on Tuesday headlined “Prejudicial or Not” and an Express story in which the Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Henderson cited the Rees v Crane case in a letter to Bernard as it pertained to fairness at the Inquiry. Bernard’s response to Newsday was that the comments made by the Commission’s lead attorney Theodore Guerra, SC, about Maritime being a spider in a web of corruption formed no part of its evidence by any witnesses at the Inquiry. Bernard said Henderson’s reference to the Rees v Crane matter was an attempt to “tell me, or so it seems, that I should know better because I was involved.” But an obviously hurt Bernard denied that he was part of the Committee that sat to deal with Crane’s matter. He said he merely received reports from people, which he referred to the Commission (Judicial and Legal Services Commission). He recalled that the Privy Council said, “That body of which I formed no part should have given Crane the opportunity to respond to complaints against him, but I was not part of that body or whatever decisions they made.”

He asked the DPP how the Commission had breached the rule of fairness when it had given everyone implicated the opportunity to question those who implicated them. Bernard implored the DPP not to take a case and seek to apply it to a situation that does not apply. He maintained that the Rees v Crane matter did not apply to the Commission and that the matter raised by attorneys for certain people was that of pre-trial publicity, a matter for which other cases like Chadee v State and Grant v DPP were applicable. Bernard added that he had to reveal certain things based on the fact that Henderson had “implied that I was involved (in the Crane matter).” “I did not act alone ... sue me, sue me if you dare, I will reveal the whole story about Justice Crane and his career. I got several letters complaining about Justice Crane from the Law Association. People sitting as judges complained about him bitterly. I have letters, I always keep records, don’t tempt me. Crane was a drunkard!” Attorney for the Commission Justin Phelps advised Bernard that Crane had died and his statements were not relevant to the articles, but he was ignored. Crane became the first local judge to be suspended from the bench in 1990. The suspension was recommended by the JLSC, which Bernard as then Chief Justice headed. A tribunal to investigate Crane’s conduct was later appointed. The inquiry will resume on Friday at 9.30 am.