A hearing got under way Tuesday in Grand Court Judge Richard Williams’ chambers pitting Cayman Islands Attorney General Samuel Bulgin against former police special investigator Martin Bridger.
Although a court list initially appeared to state the matter would be held in “Chambers as open Court”, a decision was made Tuesday morning to bar the media and the public from attending.
Typically, hearings in Cayman Islands judges’ chambers are not held in public.
The disagreement putting the Cayman Islands against its former senior investigating officer in the ill-fated Operation Tempura probe has caused months of delay in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the government by former Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Commissioner Stuart Kernohan.
The hearing is set to continue through Thursday, according to court schedules.
According to court records obtained by the Caymanian Compass, Mr. Bulgin has filed a claim in Grand Court seeking to prevent the release of certain documents in court. Those documents are held by Mr. Bridger.
Precisely what those records might contain is unknown, but it’s clear the government is keen to keep them under wraps.
Court records filed in October 2011 state: “The grounds of this application are that, as set out in detail in the first affidavit of Vicki Ann Ellis [former Cayman Islands Solicitor General], the defendant [Mr. Bridger} has threatened to disclose in the Kernohan proceedings certain privileged documents in circumstances where the court is entitled to and should restrain him from doing so.”
Mr. Bridger was sued along with the Cayman Islands government in a writ filed by Mr. Kernohan back in 2009, claiming that the Operation Tempura probe and actions of then-Cayman Islands Governor Stuart Jack cost Mr. Kernohan his contract with the RCIPS.
Legal proceedings in Cayman last year ended up removing Mr. Jack from the lawsuit and also revealed that Mr. Bridger, who served during a portion of Operation Tempura as a paid member of the RCIPS, had been cast adrift by government to look after his own defence in the lawsuit.
Former Acting RCIPS Commissioner James Smith was also removed from the lawsuit during the 2011 hearing.
Mr. Kernohan’s attorneys have acknowledged that their client’s claim was being held up by matters outside their control.
By a letter dated 27 March, 2008, Mr. Jack placed Mr. Kernohan on required leave along with two other former RCIPS officers who became embroiled in the Operation Tempura probe. The writ filed by Mr. Kernohan’s attorneys states this was unlawful and in breach of the contract, which contained no term permitting the governor to do so.
The letter included a condition that Mr. Kernohan could not leave the island, which amounted to false imprisonment, his lawyers claimed. The former police commissioner was eventually fired after he refused to return to Cayman on Mr. Jack’s orders.
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I am going to avoid the temptation to comment directly on what is currently going on here but there is one point from the historical aspects of the story that needs clarifying.
It states above that Martin Bridger was at some point a paid member of RCIPS.
That’s not correct. From September 2007 to April 2008 he was a serving member of the Metropolitan Police Service (Met) paid from the UK and working in the Cayman Islands on a full cost recovery basis.
In May 2008, in a contract the Met tell me was negotiated by then Assistant Commission John Yates during February 2008, he status changed to – a special constable in RCIPS who holds a contract as an investigator with Donovan EBANKS Deputy Chief Secretary/Chief Officer Portfolio of Internal/External Affairs – that is a direct quote from an email I received from one of the other investigators in February 2009.
In fact other emails released under FOI confirm that during this period he was never actually employed by RCIPS but was under contract to, and answerable to, Internal/External Affairs.
So although he may have been a Special Contstable Mr Bridger was in fact a private consultant working for CIG not a serving member of RCIPS and it’s a significant distinction, which many people seem to have ignored, when it comes to the issue of who pays his legal costs.
John…
Isn’t someone’s right to a fair trial or hearing being violated here with the government suppression of these documents ?
They’ve been suppressed from this operation began, really and the cover-ups and pay-offs continue…out of the CI Govt’s coffers of course and if this suppression continues…Kernohan will have to be paid off in an out-of-court settlement as well, similar to Dixon was but…
Does this not leave Martin Bridger open to pursue his rights under the ECHR statutes regarding his right to a fair trial ?
Under his rights, as a defendant in Kernohan’s lawsuit, he has as much right to ANY information to aid his defense as the person who is accusing him..the CI Government is denying him that right by appealing to the CI court to bar these documents from evidence.
Do you not think that at some point in time, the European Court of Human Rights will ORDER the Cayman Islands and British Goverments to release this information ?
The way things are going now, especially in this fight between Bulgin and Bridger, I can’t see this NOT happening eventually.
Firery, for sound legal reasons I cannot respond directly to your points but can I ask you a question?
If someone illegally entered your home and walked out with confidential documents, computer discs, possibly your laptop and other records that were not their property would you then be prepared to sit back and allow them to be used in court to defend that person’s conduct?
I am not saying that is what happened here but you might consider it in the context of your questions.