THE Court of Appeal has unanimously rebuked the Crown’s appeal of former PLP Senator Frank Smith’s acquittal of multiple bribery and extortion charges, marking the state’s second loss in what PLP supporters have called a political “witch hunt” against the former accused cabinet minister.

Appellate Justices Jon Isaacs, Stella Crane-Scott, and Roy Jones concurred that the Crown’s appeal was “unsustainable”, as it failed to show what was “so clearly wrong” with Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt’s decision to acquit Mr Smith of the 15 charges.

The appellate judges conceded the existence of “procedural missteps” on the chief magistrate’s part, and acknowledged that there were a “number of conclusions” the chief magistrate arrived at that were not “entirely logical or sound”.

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