The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE 

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A SUPREME Court judge has found that Anglican education officials maliciously defamed lawyer and St John’s College board member Terri Bellot, ruling that a disciplinary letter falsely portrayed her as violent and dishonest after she complained about a delay in obtaining her daughter’s school transcript.

Justice Carla Card-Stubbs found that Anglican Central Education Authority director Italia Davies knew Mrs Bellot’s conduct did not amount to violence but signed a letter “riddled with references to violent behaviour”, which the judge described as “malicious embellishment”.

The court also found that Mrs Davies intended to “make an example” of Mrs Bellot and that the letter contained allegations she knew to be false.

Mrs Bellot also succeeded in her claim that she was denied procedural fairness when the authority demanded that she publicly apologise and threatened to ban her indefinitely from the St John’s College campus without first giving her a meaningful opportunity to answer the allegations.

Judgment was entered against Mrs Davies and the Incorporated Trustees of the Church of England in The Bahamas, which does business as the Anglican Central Education Authority and owns and operates St John’s College. Mrs Bellot’s separate claims for breach of contract, breach of policy and negligence were dismissed.

The amount Mrs Bellot will receive for defamation has not yet been determined. Justice Card-Stubbs ordered the parties to make further submissions on damages and legal costs.

The ruling, dated September 15, concludes litigation Mrs Bellot filed in 2019. The court delivered its decision on September 11, with written reasons following four days later, and Justice Card-Stubbs expressly regretted the “protracted delay” in resolving the case.

The dispute began in January 2019 after Mrs Bellot’s daughter, Simone, then a Grade 12 student at St John’s College, applied and paid for a school transcript as she pursued university applications.

The school’s transcript request form said it would produce transcripts within three to five business days, but the electronic system was unavailable because of a subscription-payment problem. The school eventually sent the transcript to the University of Georgia on January 14 after the system was restored.

Before then, Mrs Bellot had prepared a draft transcript using her daughter’s existing school records and took it to the school seeking verification.

A week later, Mrs Davies sent Mrs Bellot a disciplinary letter accusing her of misconduct, disrespect and breaching the school’s Respect and Protect policy. It also accused her of intending to create and use a school document without permission.

The letter was copied to then Anglican Bishop Laish Boyd, the ACEA chairperson and the principal of St John’s College. It demanded a public apology and warned that failure to comply would result in Mrs Bellot being banned indefinitely from the campus.

The court found that the letter went well beyond legitimate criticism.

Justice Card-Stubbs said its language conveyed that Mrs Bellot had engaged in serious threatening or violence-related misconduct and suggested dishonest or improper conduct over the transcript. The judge found that references to Mrs Bellot’s profession as a lawyer appeared unnecessary and served to emphasise an alleged failure of integrity.

The court accepted that Mrs Bellot was angry about the transcript delay and raised her voice during her interaction with Mrs Davies.

But the judge found no evidence that her conduct amounted to violence or that she posed a threat to anyone at the school. Mrs Davies herself agreed under cross-examination that Mrs Bellot did not engage in physical violence, verbal abuse or threatening behaviour.

Justice Card-Stubbs found that Mrs Davies knew being loud or shouting did not amount to violence under the school policy.

The judgment said signing a letter filled with references to violent behaviour was therefore not merely an exaggeration but “malicious embellishment”.

Mrs Davies’ own evidence also led the court to conclude that she wanted the school to take a stand because students and others had witnessed the confrontation.

Justice Card-Stubbs found that she intended to make an example of Mrs Bellot and regarded that as an improper motive supporting the finding of malice.

The judge also rejected the suggestion that Mrs Bellot had secretly fabricated a transcript or attempted to pass it off as an authorised school document.

Mrs Bellot had openly prepared the document from existing records and presented it to school personnel, including Mrs Davies, for checking or authentication.

The court found that this was inconsistent with any genuine belief that Mrs Bellot was attempting to act covertly or deceive the school.

The judge found that the January 21 letter was an excessive response containing allegations known to be false.

Although Justice Card-Stubbs ruled that the letter had initially been sent on an occasion capable of attracting qualified privilege because the recipients had legitimate interests in school governance, that legal protection was defeated by malice.

Mrs Bellot consequently succeeded in libel.

The judge was also critical of the disciplinary process that followed.

Mrs Bellot was not given an opportunity to answer the allegations before being ordered to make a public apology or face an indefinite campus ban.

That sanction had particular consequences because she was not only the parent of a student but an elected member of the St John’s College board.

The court found that ACEA’s exercise of disciplinary power attracted common-law principles of natural justice and required notice of the allegations and an opportunity to respond before adverse action was taken.

When asked at trial whether Mrs Bellot had been afforded an opportunity to be heard before the decision, Mrs Davies replied: “Not by the ACEA. I do know that she had a meeting with the Bishop.”

Mrs Bellot subsequently challenged the decision and asked about an appeals process, but the court found that allowing her to complain after the sanction had already been imposed did not remedy the original unfairness.

Justice Card-Stubbs found that ACEA reaffirmed its decision while referring to witness accounts that had not been disclosed to Mrs Bellot.

The court declared that Mrs Davies and ACEA breached Mrs Bellot’s right to due process and procedural fairness by failing to allow her, as a parent and elected school board member, to challenge the allegations before imposing the punitive and indefinite campus ban.

Mrs Bellot did not prevail on all of her claims.

The court found that the school failed to produce Simone’s transcript within its advertised three-to-five-business-day period because of an administrative failure involving payment for the electronic transcript system.

Justice Card-Stubbs found that the defendants failed to exercise reasonable care in maintaining the system and knew or ought to have known that late transcripts could harm university applications.

However, Mrs Bellot could not prove that the delay actually harmed her daughter’s University of Georgia application, and her negligence claim was therefore dismissed.

The court also rejected her breach-of-contract and breach-of-policy claims.