Acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Howard Pinnock has accused former Attorney-General Cajeton Hood and Podcaster Jenny Simon of not speaking the truth on court papers filed seeking to bring about a criminal prosecution of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and two other state officials.

In an exclusive interview with THE NEW TODAY, Pinnock denied that the Magistrate had summoned the Grenadian leader to appear in court on January 19, 2027.

“I discovered that Cajeton Hood did not speak the truth. The Magistrate did not issue any summons for any of the parties. I confirmed that this morning (Thursday) after speaking with the Magistrate….neither was any court date set,” he said.

One day earlier, Pinnock described as “highly improper and irregular” the approach of Hood to move the Court to bring criminal proceedings against the Prime Minister pertaining to a company that was formed and used to facilitate the Project Polaris Modern Hospital to be built in the Hope Vale/Calivigny area.

The leading State Prosecutor also took action to discontinue Hood’s legal action and to make it null and void as the island prepares to go to the Polls on November 5 in a battle in which Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell is leading Congress against the Emmalin Pierre-led New National Party (NNP).

“The Constitution vests in me a power at any stage, at any point to discontinue Criminal Proceedings and I just had my Secretary to go down to the court to file this document we call in Latin Nolle Prosequi (to discontinue the matter).

Nolle Prosequi (often called Nol. Pros) is a Latin phrase meaning “to be unwilling to pursue a legal matter.”

It is really a formal legal notice issued by a Prosecutor like the DPP or Plaintiff to drop or stop a criminal charge or civil lawsuit before a verdict is reached.

According to Pinnock, the Secretary in his office was instructed early Wednesday morning to serve the document on the Magistrate’s office and also on the law office of Hood.

The legal proceedings filed by Hood, who served as Attorney-General from 2013-17 under a previous NNP regime contained six complaints alleging criminal misconduct on the part of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, Ambassador Andrea St Bernard and Robert Branch, the Registrar for Intellectual Property in relation to lands being used for the US$250 million dollar Project Polaris.

Hood reportedly served the legal papers on the DPP’s office about 3.30 p.m. on Tuesday and asked a sitting Magistrate to summon PM Dickon Mitchell and the two others to appear in court to answer the allegations.

A few weeks earlier, Hood and Simon filed Civil Proceedings on the same matter before the High Court and the matter is due to be heard about a week before the general election.

Pinnock accused Hood of not following the legal process in seeking to bring criminal charges against the Prime Minister.

He pointed out that the Magistrate did not summon the Prime Minister to appear in Court in January as being portrayed.

The DPP said: “The complaint on oath that Jenny Simon-Rapier signed required her to bind herself over to attend court in the matter so on that document she was given 19th January and 19th February 2027 – this is not a summons.

The fact is that after the complaint on oath is completed at some point thereafter the Magistrate would sign a Summons prepared by staff and this would be issued for service on the defendants.

It never reached that stage and so it was a deliberate misrepresentation on Mr Hood’s part to tell the public that summons were issued by the Magistrate.

What Mr Hood did was not a usual procedure. The usual established procedure is to make a report and let an independent investigator investigate who is not obliged to the accuser or the accused.

Mr Hood sought to commence private prosecution. I can tell you that in 2024, there were 6681 cases dealt with by the Police Prosecution Department and in 2025 it was 6468 and there was not one single private prosecution in over 12,000 matters that came before the Court.

I reviewed all the documents supplied by Mr Hood which were 6 complaints on oath, 1 company document and 3 documents relating to different civil suits filed by Mr Hood against the AG (Attorney General) and other parties.

There was ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that the Prime Minister or any of the parties named in the complaints had committed any criminal offence and it was therefore my duty as the independent constitutional officer vested with oversight of the criminal process to intervene and discontinue the charges in the interest of justice.

Mr Hood or Mrs Simon Rapier at no time made any reports to the police in these matters which would have caused them to investigate if the evidence was provided that met the threshold to trigger an investigation.

They instead bypassed an important safeguard to protect accused persons and promote fairness by commencing private prosecution raising serious indictable allegations and bypassing the constitutional authority of the DPP in his oversight of the criminal process to ensure that evidence exists which can afford a reasonable prospect of a conviction before charges are laid.

Not only that it is inimical to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial for anyone to be discussing in a public forum charges against any accused and commenting on them as facts and crimes.”

According to Ag DPP Pinnock, the regular laws of Grenada vest in the Police the power to conduct a Criminal Investigation while the Constitution empowers the DPP to have oversight of Criminal matters in the country.

“If you have allegations of serious criminal conduct against the highest authority in the land you make a report to the Police or you make a complaint at the DPP’s office and support it with some evidence.

“If you have allegations of criminal conduct against any citizen you make a report to the proper authority which is the Police. This is not a case where they’ve said they make a report to the Police or they have brought it to the attention of the DPP and nothing has been done. They are not saying that.

“If you have a proper complaint and the Police refuse to act or the DPP refused to do anything then you have no choice but to do a Private Prosecution. This is not the case – they have not done so.

“You just don’t go behind the backs of these two authorities and serve and get private prosecution for such serious accusations. You don’t go behind the backs of the DPP and the Police on the eve of an election and to do this.”

Pinnock also referred to the act governing the operations of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) which specifically states that the lawmen are duty bound to conduct a probe into the allegations “if you have reasonable cause to believe that an offence had been committed.”

He said that Hood and Simon did nothing of the sort and were merely attempting to circumvent the legal process with the allegation made against the Prime Minister and the two high-level State officials.

Simon, a former Executive member of Congress is now supporting the NNP, and in the past three years have led a broadside of constant attacks against Mobilisation Implementation and Transformation (MIT) Minister Andy Williams on allegations of corruption.