SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER: WHEN TRUTH WAS NOT A DEFENCE

There was a time in Antigua when taking on the government could cost a journalist considerably more than advertising dollars, political friendships or access to those in power. Newspapers could be seized, offices raided, editors prosecuted and printing arrangements disrupted. In the middle of some of the fiercest battles over press freedom in post-war Antigua stood Leonard “Tim” Hector, a political activist, intellectual and journalist whose Outlet newspaper became one of the most persistent thorns in the side of successive Bird administrations.

Founded in 1968, Outlet was never designed to be a comfortable newspaper. It challenged the political establishment, questioned government decisions and pursued stories other publications might have considered too dangerous or politically costly to touch. Hector’s politics were well known and his newspaper was unapologetically adversarial, but what followed over the next three decades went far beyond the normal bruising relationship between politicians and the press. Outlet and the state would become locked in a series of confrontations involving the police, the courts, criminal charges, confiscated newspapers, injunctions and eventually an arson attack that destroyed its office.

One of the early major confrontations involved the Space Research Corporation and allegations surrounding weapons destined for apartheid South Africa during the 1970s. Hector pursued the issue aggressively, later writing that the controversy destroyed his personal relationship with Lester Bird. The pressure on Outlet was not limited to political criticism. In 1978, the Antigua Printing and Publishing Company stopped printing the newspaper, reportedly because of concerns about possible libel proceedings. For a small publication operating in Antigua at the time, losing access to a printing press presented an existential threat. Hector nevertheless found ways to continue publishing.

By 1982, the confrontation had escalated dramatically. Police raided the Outlet office and seized documents and the newspaper’s subscribers’ mailing lists, with authorities initially claiming that secret government material was involved. Police Commissioner Edric Potter subsequently announced that Outlet would no longer be permitted to publish after July 31. Three days after the police raid, the office was broken into and equipment worth thousands of dollars was stolen. The newspaper continued publishing and police later seized copies of its August 21 edition. Hector took the matter to court and, on September 4, 1982, the High Court affirmed Outlet’s constitutional right to publish. It was an important victory, but it was nowhere near the end of the battle.

That same period produced one of the darkest and most consequential chapters in the Hector story. Bernard “Abba” Brown, a Rastafarian, died while in police custody. Two police officers were charged with manslaughter, but in January 1983 they were acquitted after the trial judge directed the jury to return not-guilty verdicts at the close of the prosecution’s case. Hector and Outlet responded with a series of explosive articles questioning what had happened to Brown and accusing senior police officials of concealing the truth. Hector alleged that the officers who had been prosecuted were not the men responsible for Brown’s death and accused the Police Commissioner of knowing more about the circumstances surrounding it.

The authorities responded through the courts. Police Commissioner Wright George filed a criminal information against Hector in February 1983, and another charge followed in relation to statements Hector allegedly made at a public meeting. It was around these legal battles that one of the most enduring phrases in Antiguan political folklore became associated with Hector and Outlet: “The truth shall not be a defence.” The actual law was more qualified than the phrase suggests. Truth was not automatically a defence unless the court considered publication to have been for the public benefit, but the chilling effect of such a provision on journalists investigating powerful people was obvious.

Hector continued publishing even while proceedings were underway. One edition of Outlet carried a photograph of him in handcuffs and portrayed him as one of the most prosecuted and persecuted political figures in the English-speaking Caribbean. Articles published in March and April 1983 resulted in Hector being found guilty of contempt of court and fined $2,000. His appeal failed, with the court concluding that the publications had crossed the boundary between legitimate freedom of expression and material capable of prejudicing proceedings. Hector, however, was far from finished with the courts.

Another prosecution in 1985 would ultimately produce his most significant legal victory. Hector was charged under Section 33B of the Public Order Act, legislation that criminalised certain false statements where publication was likely to “undermine public confidence in the conduct of public affairs.” The implications were enormous. Journalism frequently exposes conduct that causes citizens to lose confidence in government, yet here was a law capable of turning that very consequence into part of a criminal offence. Hector challenged the provision and carried the fight through the judicial system until it reached the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

In January 1990, the Privy Council handed down its decision in Hector v Attorney General of Antigua and Barbuda, and Hector won. The court found the offending provision inconsistent with the constitutional protection of freedom of expression and articulated a principle that travelled far beyond Antigua and Barbuda: those who hold public office must remain open to criticism. Attempts to suppress criticism simply because it damages public confidence in government amount to a particularly dangerous form of political censorship. The man who had spent years being prosecuted for what he published had helped establish an important Commonwealth precedent protecting the right to criticise those who govern.

The victory did not tame Outlet. Through the 1990s Hector continued investigating and attacking the Lester Bird administration, generating lawsuits, injunctions and repeated confrontations with those in authority. Then, in 1998, the battle took an even darker turn. Outlet published a report concerning a substantial quantity of weapons acquired by the government. The official explanation was that the weapons were intended to modernise and properly equip the police, while opposition figures and critics raised questions about the quantity and purpose of the acquisition.

On November 19, 1998, the Outlet office was deliberately set on fire. Investigators determined that diesel fuel had been poured throughout the building before it was ignited. Hector described the attack as “an act of state terrorism,” although there has never been publicly established evidence proving that the Bird government ordered or carried out the attack. That distinction matters, particularly in telling a story about truth and journalism. What is established is disturbing enough: a newspaper with a long history of confronting the government had published a controversial investigation involving weapons, and its offices were subsequently destroyed in a deliberate arson attack. The investigation failed to establish who was responsible.

The fire did not silence Outlet. For a period the newspaper was printed outside Antigua before eventually returning home, and Hector continued writing. Even into the new century, the battles continued, with court injunctions being sought against the newspaper over its reporting on allegations involving public funds. By the time Hector died in November 2002, his record as one of Antigua and Barbuda’s most consequential and controversial journalists was already secure.

There is no need to romanticise Tim Hector to understand his importance. His politics were partisan, his language could be ferocious, his allegations were not always accepted by the courts and opposition to a government does not automatically make every accusation correct. Journalism should not demand that history accept its claims merely because the journalist making them was courageous. The more important point is that Hector repeatedly asserted the right to ask the questions, publish uncomfortable information and challenge those exercising state power, even when doing so brought the police, government and courts directly to his door.

That is perhaps the part of the story most worth remembering today. Freedom of the press sounds wonderful when newspapers publish things governments like. Its value becomes apparent when they publish things governments desperately wish they would not. The freedoms Antiguans now exercise almost casually — criticising governments on radio, questioning ministers online, publishing investigations and openly accusing administrations of failure — were strengthened by battles fought long before Facebook, WhatsApp and talk radio became part of everyday political life.

Tim Hector fought some of those battles with a newspaper called Outlet. His office was raided, copies of his newspaper were seized, he was prosecuted and hauled repeatedly before the courts, his publication faced attempts at suppression, and years later its headquarters went up in flames. Yet one of his fights reached all the way from Antigua and Barbuda to the Privy Council and produced a judgment affirming something that today sounds obvious, but once had to be fought for: governments do not possess a constitutional right to public confidence, and those who govern must tolerate criticism from those they govern.

That is why, decades later, the phrase still survives in Antigua’s political memory: “The truth shall not be a defence.”

The law was more nuanced than the slogan, but perhaps the slogan survived because it captured the atmosphere of the time. Tim Hector’s response was equally simple. He kept publishing.