In case you missed our front page story Thursday, the headline was ‘Justice Henderson wins.’
To sum up, a judge has ruled the UK Metropolitan Police officers who have been here for more than a year looking into alleged misconduct in the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service and the local judiciary used improperly and illegally obtained search warrants in the course of their investigation.
There were ‘numerous failures or misrepresentations by the police’ that were referred to by Sir Peter Cresswell in his decision to set aside search warrants for Judge Alexander Henderson’s home and office issued on 24 September.
This follows a 4 April decision by Chief Justice Anthony Smellie, which denied search warrants against two top ranking RCIPS officers being investigated by the UK Met team, partly because he found no evidence that the police commanders had done anything wrong.
The facts of each case differ, but Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan, Chief Superintendent John Jones, and Mr. Henderson are all being investigated in relation to misconduct in a public office.
Let’s be clear: We are not trying to ‘derail’ any police investigation, certainly not by calling crucial Crown witnesses liars and criminals, as another publication has done.
The UK Met officers’ work has led to criminal charges against two people, namely former MLA Lyndon Martin and an RCIPS Deputy Police Commissioner Rudi Dixon.
However, we have not seen the same results with regard to Messrs. Kernohan, Jones and Henderson after more than a year.
In light of this, and in light of Sir Peter’s decision and the 4 April ruling by the Chief Justice, we feel Governor Stuart Jack has some explaining to do.
At the very least, the Caymanian public is owed a specific explanation for each and every dime that has been spent on the UK team’s probe to date. That includes both the criminal investigation involving the RCIPS and judiciary, and the subsequent unrelated complaints that have been reviewed by a separate police team. This needs to happen now.
We are also of the opinion that an explanation with regard to the independence of this ongoing investigation is critical. It came out during Justice Henderson’s judicial review hearings that Acting Police Commissioner David George was essentially in a command position in some respects over Chief Investigating Officer Martin Bridger, the man leading the misconduct investigation. Granted, Mr. George is still employed with the UK Met, but the apparent conflict this situation could create is obvious.
Finally, we would like to know whether Mr. Bridger, both his teams of investigators and their attorney Martin Polaine are required to obtain, or have obtained work permits or government contracts at any point during the course of their duties here.
We believe none of these issues deal directly with the alleged criminal matters under review and therefore will not prejudice or ‘derail’ any investigation.
It is time for the very patient Caymanian public to have answers.
Related Videos
