Former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament Leslie Campbell has been found guilty of breaching the Integrity Commission Act after failing to provide required information regarding his income declarations.
The ruling was handed down in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Tuesday morning.
Campbell, a former Government senator and Member of Parliament for St Catherine North Eastern, faced charges brought last year under the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act and the Integrity Commission Act. The charges followed recommendations from Keisha Prince-Kameka, the Integrity Commission’s Director of Corruption Prosecution.
During the trial, Campbell’s attorney, Matthew Hyatt, argued that his client had complied with the commission’s requirements and had submitted all relevant documentation, including information relating to his Sagicor bank accounts for the periods ending December 2019 and September 2020. Hyatt alleged that the Integrity Commission had misplaced some of the submitted documents, a claim Campbell echoed in his defense.
“Mr. Campbell filed all his statutory declarations between 2016 and 2020 as MP. He was frank and open in every declaration and has nothing to hide,” Hyatt said, adding that Campbell had also provided documentation for several insurance policies, which reportedly had no surrender value.
However, the Integrity Commission (IC) contended that Campbell failed to fully comply with multiple requests for additional information over a four-year period. In an investigative report released in June 2023, the IC’s Director of Investigation, Kevon Stephenson, revealed that Campbell received 39 written requests for information between 2016 and 2020, but only partially responded. The IC said the outstanding details included the surrender value of two life insurance policies and the account balance related to a bank loan.
Despite the defense’s insistence that Campbell had done “all that was reasonably necessary to satisfy the IC,” the commission maintained that his responses were inadequate. The anti-corruption body reported Campbell to Parliament in 2017 for non-compliance and later concluded in its findings that he was legally obligated to provide the requested details.
Campbell, who resigned from the Senate last year, had previously sought an urgent review of the IC’s decision. He argued that some of the information requested, including the surrender value for a Guardian Life Care Plus insurance policy, was irrelevant, as the policy had no surrender value.
The Integrity Commission, in its final report tabled in Parliament, reaffirmed its position that Campbell’s failure to comply constituted a breach of his obligations under the Integrity Commission Act during his tenure as a Member of Parliament.
 Member of Parliament Leslie Campbell has been found guilty of breaching the Integrity Commission Act.){kind=link}