Commissioner Baines, two others on New Year’s Honors list

Government announced its New Year’s Honours List on Tuesday, led by an Order of the British Empire for Police Commissioner David Baines, and a Certificate and Badge of Honour for two others. 

Bodden Town community activist Thomas Magnus Wood was named for services to the civil service and Chrissie Tomlinson memorial Hospital’s Dr. Saratchandra de Alwis-Seneviratne for services to medicine. 

According to a government release, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth named Mr. Baines, “a senior police administrator with nearly four decades of experience in challenging positions in the United Kingdom, an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of services to policing in the Cayman Islands.” 

Mr. Baines told the Caymanian Compass that he views the honor as a reflection on the entire Cayman Islands police force. 

“It comes in my name, yes, but I look at it as a wide acknowledgement of what the police service does – and is doing,” he said. 

“I’m in the seventh month of my second four-year contract, and we have been developing local officials, hoping to see them take leadership roles. We have been successful, for example, in placing Kurt Walton [chief superintendant of police] into a Senior Command Course in the U.K. We’ve never had anyone on that before, so it shows how we are developing local talent.” 

Mr. Baines arrived in Cayman in 2009 in the wake of an outbreak of violent crime, demanding a budget increase and more secure staff numbers, enabling their public presence throughout the islands at potential crime sites. 

Accompanying legislation helped the commissioner reduce crime rates almost immediately, although 2013 statistics indicate persistent spikes in such crimes as burglary, reflecting a tight economy. Mr. Baines said he is acutely aware of accusations of ineffective, inefficient policing, but offered a wider view. 

“I accept that,” he said of the skeptics, “but I ask them to look around: This is still one of the safest places in the Caribbean. 

“We continue to try harder, and I understand that people always expect more, but we do have three-and-a-half years of reducing crime levels.” 

Mr. Baines is part of a number of regional and international organizations addressing cross-border crime, and chairs the local Anti-Corruption Commission, sits on the National Security Council and, since May 2013, has been president of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners, saying his slot points to the role Cayman plays in regional policing. 

While hinting he may be finished after completing his current contract, the commissioner declared his enthusiasm for policing: “When the day comes, and I no longer want to put on the uniform and come to work, then that will be the day. 

“I have always said that you meet some of the best and some of the worst people in the world in this business, but it is never dull.” 

The soft-spoken Thomas Wood responded almost reluctantly to questions about his newly conferred Certificate and Badge of Honor. While awarded for his civil service work, Mr. Wood has been a stalwart community supporter for many years. 

“It was a pleasure” to receive the award, he said. “I was really delighted to learn of it. When the governor called me, it was really a shock.” 

Of the woman who nominated him, longtime Bodden Town activist and former MLA Heather Bodden, Mr. Wood said, “I’ll have to go over see her and thank her for her kindness.” Hired by the Public Works Department in 1979, Mr. Wood became a carpenter, attended college and gained promotion to foreman in the early ‘90s. He now heads a staff of 15, responsible for building maintenance. His most memorable job was the construction and fit-out of the old Glass House. He now manages preparations for such national events as the Queen’s Birthday, Heroes Day and Remembrance Day and anything on the steps of the Legislative Assembly. 

In Bodden Town, he has been a constant figure in the community, from a decade as a Special Constable to 30 years on the Bodden Town Pirates’ Week Committee, rising to vice-president several years ago and gaining a series of district awards. 

He still helps out with weekly fish-frys, fund-raises for local schools and has been a figure on both district and national football teams. 

“I’m a multi-tasker,” he says in a masterful understatement. “I love to help people. I’ve always felt this way. The actual commitment that drives me is to make everybody happy in their activities.” 

Born in Bodden Town 52 years ago, Mr. Wood led Bodden Town’s “PC Dynamite” dominoes team to a national championship in the ‘90s, and represented Cayman overseas as part of the national dominoes team, 

He also was named Defender of the Year three years in a row as part of the Cayman Islands national football team in the 1990s. 

More recently, he was deployed to Cayman Brac in the wake of 2010’s Hurricane Paloma. 

“I was deployed to get the place up and running,” he said, “and was over there for a month. I was the last to get home. When I first arrived, I thought no one lived on the island, it was such a mess.” 

Finally, Dr. Saratchandra de Alwis-Seneviratne, known better as Dr. De Alwis, is possibly the best known ob-gyn on the island. Not many ob-gyn’s remain, as the cost of insurance for maternity procedures has skyrocketed, pushing most doctors out of the business.  

Sri Lankan by birth, Dr. De Alwis is a British citizen and a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians, Gynaecologists and Surgeons. He is also a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare. 

Dr. De Alwis arrived in Cayman in 1994 as the head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cayman Islands Hospital, but left in 1996 for the private sector as a senior specialist and consultant. He now practices independently at Chrissie Tomlinson Memorial Hospital and is an assistant professor at St. Matthew’s University School of Medicine. 

The doctor’s primary interests are infertility, cancer screening and pain relief. With more than 35 years of practice, he is an acknowledged expert, and has pioneered techniques in laparoscopic surgery, earning a Harvard University designation for “The De Alwis method.”