The involvement of a man cleared on drugs charges with controversy surrounding the handling of the case against him was considered by the top detective leading an inquiry into the matter, a special Commission heard yesterday.

The admission came after the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Bermuda Police drugs squad said that the only person who appeared to have gained any advantage from the row was the then-alleged drugs offender Ellsworth Wilson.

Commission chairman, former Bermuda Court of Appeal judge and Privy Councillor Telford Georges, said: "The only person who has benefited from this is Mr.

Wilson.'' He added that most of the others involved in the Commission's probe had suffered damage to their reputations as a result.

But Mr. Georges pointed out that Mr. Wilson had "certainly benfited immensely'' from allegations levelled at narcotics department officers.

He was speaking as Det. Insp. Steven Shaw, the man who led the internal probe into allegations of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice made by ex-Det. Cons. Lendrea Davis.

Mr. Shaw told the Commission that involvement by Mr. Wilson had been considered.

He said: "I think there was always a suspicion -- I had a suspicion, but I had no evidence.'' He added: "We did make certain inquiries into that aspect of it and we came up effectively blank...certain inquiries were conducted to try to find out if there was evidence. We were not able to find any.'' The exchange came on the second day of evidence to the Commission, set up to examine the workings of the Bermuda Police narcotics department -- in particular the squad's handling of the case against Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Shaw added that he submitted his final report on his investigations to Deputy Commissioner Jean-Jacques Lemay in June. Mr. Lemay gave evidence yesterday, but the Commission ordered that he be heard in private.

He said that he had he had been specifically asked to do a criminal investigation -- but that the "elements of a criminal charge were not satisfied.'' Mr. Shaw added: "The Attorney General's Chambers readily and whole-heartedly agreed with our conclusions and said they were the correct ones.'' Mr. Wilson was acquitted of drugs charges involving a quantity the heroin derivative diamorphine with an estimated street value of $63,000 in June.

Supreme Court heard then that drugs allegedly taken from Mr. Wilson's car on February 21 had not been booked in to the official narcotics custodian until the following day.

Puisne Judge Norma Wade ordered the jury to return formal not guilty verdicts after ruling that the continuity of evidence had not been maintained.

Wilson `benefited' from row The ruling came after Ms Davis, who has since quit the force, claimed she had been pressured by the case officer in the Wilson investigation, Det. Cons.

Randolph Richardson, to change her notes to match those of other officers involved in the case.

The inquiry also heard that the original notes -- Ms Davis was the appointed note-taker in the Wilson investigation -- had gone missing and could not be found.

During the trial of Mr. Wilson, Ms Davis also said that one of the pages of her nine-page statement had a forged signature, while another officer admitted he signed blank statement forms attached to hand-written notes and left them to be typed -- against regulations.

Earlier, drugs squad Inspector Roseanda Jones confirmed that the signature on page seven of the nine-page statement was not Ms Davis'. Det. Cons.

Richardson's signature also appeared on each page.

Mr. Shaw said it was accepted that someone else had forged the signature -- but that it had proved impossible to find out who had done it, despite hi-tech tests by Canadian experts.

Mr. Shaw added that he had interviewed Ms Davis -- who he described as an "uncooperative'' and "verging on being obstructive'' complainant -- and listened to tapes she had made of conversations with Det. Cons. Richardson.

He said that the tapes appeared to back Det. Cons. Richardson's claims that he had asked Ms Davis to add in to her notes that around $1,300 in cash had been seized at the time Mr. Wilson had been taken into custody.

Mr. Shaw said that Det. Cons. Richardson had at first denied that he had asked Ms Davis to change anything -- but admitted after reading transcripts of the tapes that he had asked her to add a note on the money seized to her statement.

He added that Det. Cons. Richardson had lied because he did not want what he said to Ms Davis to be "misinterpreted'' and that the officer had apologised for his conduct.

Mr. Shaw also said that Det. Cons. Richardson had neither confirmed or denied that blank signed forms were routinely used and that he had found no evidence to support those claims. Insp. Jones earlier confirmed that the practice was unknown to her and she would have cracked down if she had heard of it being done. He added that what may have been a draft statement of seven pages was located and did not differ from the nine-page one in terms of evidential value.

But Mr. Shaw told the Commission he indicated in his report that there were issues which needed to be resolved in the narcotics department.

He said no-one he had interviewed had expressed any knowledge of the forgery and that the use of blank signed forms -- if it had happened once -- was once too often. Mr. Shaw added: "There was clearly some problem with the security of notes -- to date, notes from the Wilson case are still missing.'' Mr. Shaw said that there should be closer security of files within the narcotics department.