Was tape doctored? Speaker enquires

Speaker of the House, Hendrick Alexander has said that he wants to know whether a recording submitted to him by Parliamentary Representative for Central Kingstown St Claire Leacock was doctored.{{more}}

During the sitting of the House on November 15, Alexander said Leacock had submitted a recording as evidence to support a challenge he made to a comment made by Senator Julian Francis.

“But what I have seen from this statement and I am very sorry that the member is not here, because he presented me with a CD and the excerpt was taken, according to a CD, from the July 31, 2012 meeting, and it refers to pages 56 and 58 [of the Hansard],” he said.

Alexander, however, said, on checking the Hansard of that meeting, pages 54 to 59, it appeared to him that the contents on the recording “did not necessarily fall in sequence.

“I go as far to say there might have been a doctoring of the whole thing, because this is what appears in the CD and I wanted to ask the member whether he was aware of what in fact was stated on the CD compared, with what is on the actual Hansard…because things didn’t necessarily fall in sequence and it does not appear that things were correct,” Alexander said.

The Speaker said that he had told Leacock about the issue and indicated to him that he wanted to speak to him on the matter.

“Because I saw the disparities in the statements and so on … he did indicate in the presence of the honourable member for Marriaqua that I did indicate that to him, but he has never made the effort to see me in relation to that matter,” Alexander said. (DD)