Bermuda Police Website Still Upholding Laws
One of the more impressive examples of institutional continuity currently on display in Bermuda may be found not in Hamilton, nor at Magistrates’ Court, but on the Bermuda Police Service website.
There, Superintendent Jerome Laws continues to enjoy an entirely uninterrupted online biography.
Visitors are warmly informed of his professionalism, leadership, dedication and distinguished policing career. There is, however, as yet no reference to his recent court appearance, his being charged with causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving, refusing a breath sample, or indeed his current status on bail pending arraignment.
The page remains, in essence, a tribute to Laws. Quite literally.
This is not to prejudge proceedings. Mr Laws is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
But one might have thought that, where a senior serving officer publicly showcased as a divisional leader is simultaneously before the criminal courts, the official biography might benefit from at least the occasional nod toward temporal accuracy.
Instead, Bermuda Police appear content to preserve a charmingly pre-charge version of events.
Perhaps the webmaster is awaiting the outcome before deciding which Laws apply.
Either way, transparency would seem to have taken a short administrative leave.
More importantly, accuracy matters beyond this single page.
If the Bermuda Police Service cannot ensure that one of its most publicly visible senior officer profiles reflects a significant and widely reported current reality, the public would be entitled to ask a rather obvious question:
how much of the remaining website content is similarly outdated, selectively maintained, or curated so as to omit inconvenient but pertinent information?
Official websites are not merely decorative brochures. They are intended to inform the public and project institutional credibility.
Where that credibility is undermined by something as straightforward as the omission of Mr Laws’ present circumstances, confidence in the reliability — and vetting — of the wider published content inevitably suffers.
If one page can present only part of the story, readers may reasonably wonder how many others do too.
We shall watch with interest whether the Superintendent’s page is updated before his court listing is.
Linked – Bermuda Police Mess?
