Former MLA opts for Grand Court

(CNS): Most of the charges against former UDP Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Sister Islands, Lyndon Martin will be heard in the Grand Court. The charges all relate to accusations of corruption and an alleged break-in at the Cayman Net News premises on North Sound Road, George Town, in 2007, where Martin was working as a senior reporter at the time.

Martin appeared in Summary Court yesterday morning, 21 August, for a preliminary investigation and will next appear in the Grand Court in October.
Aside from charges relating to the break-in, Martin faces charges of making false accusations and doing an act to pervert the course of public justice, which are supposedly connected to allegations made against the publisher of Net News, Desmond Seales and Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Ennis . The allegations triggered an independent internal police investigation, which has been carried out by SIO Martin Bridger formerly of the Metropolitan Police in London, now employed by the Governor’s office. Bridger has been in Cayman with a team of UK detectives since September of last year investigating issues of alleged corruption within the RCIPS.
Bridger first came to the Cayman Islands to begin an undercover operation allegedly as a result of Martin’s accusations that suggested Seales and Ennis were in a corrupt relationship. Bridger however said that he and his detectives soon discovered that those allegations were completely false, but as a result of the investigations there were other concerns which came to light regarding potential corruption within the Police Service.
In the wake of Bridger’s enquiries, which are ongoing, Commissioner of Police Stuart Kernohan, Chief Inspector John Jones and Deputy Commissioner Rudolph Dixon were suspended from duty in March of this year. Dixon was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of misconduct in a public office and two counts of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. Details of the charges were made public by Dixon’s lawyer Michael Alberga at the beginning of this month and relate to two separate incidents, one of which includes the release of two of Martin’s relatives who had been arrested on charges relating to illegal gambling.