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PM and RSV Ltd. must pay Karen Bevans $90K for defamation

HeadlinePM and RSV Ltd. must pay Karen Bevans $90K for defamation

BELIZE CITY, Mon. Aug. 30, 2021– Today, a landmark judgment was handed down in the Supreme Court by Justice Westmin James in the defamation suit brought by Karen Bevans, former Director of the Belize Tourism Board (BTB), against Prime Minister John Briceño and RSV Limited (parent company of Love FM/TV).

Bevans was awarded almost $90,000 in damages for defamatory comments made by the Prime Minister during an interview conducted on Love FM/TV in December of 2020.

The judgment awards Bevans $60,000 in compensatory damages and another $30,000 in aggravated damages.

Justice James concluded that the statement made by Hon. Briceño was indefensible. In the weeks following the issuance of a letter from Bevans’ lawyer indicating that she would be suing the Prime Minister in the wake of the comments he made, no legal action had been initiated, and it had appeared that perhaps Bevans would not be taking the matter to court. Prime Minister Briceño himself had reached such a conclusion and had told local reporters, “I don’t think she wants to go to court, because when we set up all the evidence of what has happened during her time, it’s not going to be a pretty picture.”

It appears, however, that such alleged evidence never made it to the courtroom, and Hon. Briceño is now being ordered by the court to pay for his words.

At the time, he had asserted that the former BTB director’s employment agreement was a “crony contract” and had made a number of other comments about Bevans that were deemed defamatory.

In early December, the former Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, acting as Bevans’ attorney, wrote on her behalf to Hon. Briceño to inform him of her intention to seek damages for the remarks. At the time, Bevans was also seeking a retraction and apology from the PM, who at the time seemed to welcome the lawsuit.

Late this evening, Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow gave an interview to KREM’s Marisol Amaya confirming that the judgment awarded is, as far as he is aware, the largest sum awarded for defamation in Belize’s history.

Rt. Hon. Barrow said that a number of libelous statements were made and that those comments were later defended by Prime Minister Briceno. He further noted that neither the Love media group nor Prime Minister Briceno apologized for the statements made against Bevans, resulting in the court’s decision to award $30,000 in aggravated damages in addition to the $60,000 in compensatory damages.

Hon. Barrow indicated that the defendants, Prime Minister Briceno and RSV Ltd., will have 48 days to make payment for the damages and will have to determine outside of the court what portion of the total amount each will pay.

In March of this year, Karen Bevans was terminated from the BTB after the recently elected PUP administration initiated an investigation into the possible misuse of funds from the board’s pension plan. Her contract with the BTB, which had been renewed in 2019, is said to have been worth almost half a million dollars.

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