Senator Stuart Syvret
FORMER Senator Stuart Syvret went on trial in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday accused of breaching data protection laws on his internet blog last March.
He allegedly used the website to claim that a former staff nurse had murdered his patients in a Harold Shipman-style serial killing spree. Mr Syvret named the man on his blog and posted a police report, which was prompted after a spate of deaths at the Hospital more than ten years ago.
The former nurse was investigated but was never charged in relation to the high rate of deaths between February and March 1999. The man has since worked at care homes in the Island but is no longer employed in the Health service.
Crown Advocate Stephen Baker said that Mr Syvret should not have published names from the police report, which found no evidence that the deaths were suspicious. The advocate said that by identifying the nurse, Mr Syvret put him at risk of vigilantism by people reading his ‘hysterical’ blog.
Syvret defends blog in court