in crisis following the departure of several experienced key players.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) admitted vacancies for two senior barristers, including his second in command, still needed to be filled, but said recruitment was underway with applications from overseas already in.

Fears have been raised about the loss of strength to the DPP's chambers, which now only has two barristers with a number of years experience working in Supreme Court.

In addition to them, prosecutor Larry Mussenden is learning the ropes of Supreme Court, and next Wednesday defence lawyer Juan Wolffe will join the DPP as Crown Counsel.

But it may be some weeks before the chambers is back up to full strength. A legal source yesterday said morale within the DPP was at an all time low and suspected other people may be looking to leave.

And a number of lawyers across the Island, who wished to remain anonymous, said they feared criminals would get the upper hand as inexperienced prosecutors were unlikely to win cases against more experienced defence lawyers.

Mr. Tokunbo, who has held the post of director since March, said: "There certainly is no crisis in here.

"We are short of two senior people, but I hope to have that rectified very soon. We are still able to carry on business as normal.

"We are recruiting and I will be starting to look at applications at the end of this week.

"I understand we have so far received 12, but there will possibly be more coming in because the deadline has not passed yet.'' He said anybody in his department who had leave planned during the next few weeks would be allowed to take it as normal and he said there was so far nothing to justify claims that experienced defence barristers were at an advantage.

However, at Monday's Supreme Court arraignments, Mr. Tokunbo received a personal dressing down from the Chief Justice, Austin Ward, who was forced to adjourn a number of cases because of incomplete paperwork.

And on Tuesday, two cases at Magistrates Court had to be dismissed when prosecuting counsel failed to turn up.

Defence barrister Mark Pettingill had the cases of Andre Tuzo and Andrew Hayward thrown out of court because there was nobody to prosecute.

Last night, Mr. Tokunbo said it had purely been down to a misunderstanding and was being looked into.

He added: "From what I know, about three Crown prosecutors were in the precincts of the court at the time. I don't know if the cases were dismissed because of that, but there was a mix up.'' The departure of prosecutors began in February when Leighton Rochester transferred to civil law in the Attorney General's Chambers.

In March, Peter Eccles left and his post is still outstanding. Sandra Bacchus followed in June, and last Friday Brian Calhoun left the department. They were all Senior Crown Counsel with many years experience.

And in April, prosecutor Veronica Daley also left the department.

About that same time barrister Philip Perinchief, who has 15 years experience in criminal law and 12 in civil law, applied for the post of Senior Crown Counsel with the DPP, but was not successful.

DPP denies crisis in chambers Last night he would only say that he did not know why he had been turned down, but said he was disappointed at the time. He said he was now happy working again in civil law.

Last month Opposition Legislative Affairs spokesman and lawyer John Barritt, and other members of the United Bermuda Party, tabled 12 Parliamentary Questions to find out why there had been such an exodus of experienced staff and what was being done to rectify it.

He hoped to finally have those questions answered in the House of Assembly on Friday.

Last night he said: "I think the Country deserves to know why we have arrived at this problem and what is happening to get us out of it.

"My suspicion is that the local Defence Bar is possibly rubbing their hands with glee. We have got an under-manned, under-strength DPP chambers and it gives them (defence) an advantage. It is a very serious situation.

A barrister, who did not wish to be named, said last night that even defence barristers were concerned about the situation.

He said: "Defence counsel are not comfortable because although their job is to defend, they still have a duty to society as a whole and it's not in their best interests to have a weak Crown counsel.

"If a defendant is going to walk purely because the prosecutor is weak, then that is very serious.'' Mr. Barritt said local defence lawyers may have to be pressed into service to help the DPP, but yesterday some said they would be unwilling, or unable, to do that.

Mr. Pettingill said: "As much as I would wish to see a strong DPP office, if I was to be asked to step in, and I haven't, I don't think I would be in a position to consider it, given the amount of defence work that I do. Given the size of our Bar and the clientele, I don't think it would present a particularly good perception.''