Archive for October, 2008
Hedge Fund Meltdown
(Here is the City): ESL Investments has seen its holdings in eight of its largest investments fall an average of $193m in each trading day in the last 26, which translates into a paper loss of $30m an hour. According to Morgan Stanley analyst Huw van Steenis, US hedge fund managers may lose up to 15% and Europeans 25% of assets to withdrawals by the year-end and Citadel Investment Group founder Kenneth Griffin has said: ‘I have never seen a market as full of panic as I’ve seen in the last seven or eight weeks’. Go to article.
An alarming first for Cayman
(CNS): This week delegates from all over the world will be descending on the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman for the annual meeting of the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) the first time the conference has been hosted in the Caribbean. The three day meeting includes a keynote address by Thomas Von Essen, Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department who was at the helm of rescue and protection efforts alongside Mayor Giuliani during 9/11.
Von Essen will be speaking on “Lessons In Leadership”, based on lessons he learned during this most difficult time when he faced his greatest leadership challenge.
Some 300 delegates are attending the event and aside from being an important event for the industry the conference offers an off-season money-spinner for the Cayman Islands, according to locally owned Island Electronics principal George Hunter who is the only member of the Association from the Caribbean and who will make the welcoming speech.
The CSAA is a trade association covering businesses that offer burglar and fire alarms systems for both commercial and residential premises through a central station.
Constitution not on agenda with new UK minister
(CNS): The Leader of Government Business said that there will be no discussions regarding the negotiations for the Cayman Islands’ new constitution while the government is in London this for the Overseas Territories Consultative Council, OTCC meeting. Kurt Tibbetts said that they would take the opportunity to set the dates for the next round of talks in December but the constitution itself would not be discussed.
The delegation however will be meeting with the UK government’s new Overseas Territories Minister Gillian Merron who replaced Meg Munn in the recent Cabinet reshuffle. Tibbetts said that he saw no potential problems with the arrival of a new OT minister during the constitutional negotiations as Merron had been briefed and was up to speed on the situation. Tibbetts explained that this visit to concerns the issues affecting all of the territories and the delegation is facing a packed agenda.
“The Overseas Territories Consultative Council meets once a year in London,” he said. “It was established in 1999 and serves as a forum for the Government of the United Kingdom to engage in discussion of key policy issues with heads of territory governments.”
The discussions will include issues such as good governance and a follow-up to the FAC report; Economic Issues related to Development; International human rights obligations; Immigration; Environment and Disaster Management; Financial Services and Anti-Money Laundering and a Caribbean Witness Protection Programme which will be chaired by the LoGB.
Tibbetts said aside from the OTCC meetings the delegation will also be meeting with the UK Foreign Affairs Committee and the All Parties Parliamentary Group/Friends of Cayman, which he said continues to give vital support within the UK Legislature on issues that affect Cayman.
“The first engagement following our arrival in London is a reception for Caymanian students on Saturday evening,” he said. “On Monday, we will discuss issues related to the future of the Cayman Islands office.”
Tibbetts added that the delegation, which includes Alden McLaughlin, Minister of Education, Attorney General, Samuel Bulgin, Financial Secretary, Kenneth Jefferson, Cabinet Secretary, Orrett Connor, Assistant Financial Secretary, Deborah Drummond, Barbara Conolly, Political Analyst to the Leader of Government Business; and Jennifer Dilbert, the Cayman Islands Government Representative in London, was looking forward to a successful meeting.
Police round up criminals in George Town
(CNS): Despite the obvious focus by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service on the murder of Estella Scott-Roberts officers are not neglecting the day to day work of apprehending criminals through proactive and reactive targeted operations. Police said that over the last few weeks officers have arrested a number of offenders in George Town. And 19 new recruits have been sworn in as special constables.
Notable arrests include an 18-year-old man who was arrested on suspicion of burglary. During the operation a number of suspected stolen items were recovered including a laptop, some jewellery and an iPod. The man has been released on bail pending further enquiries. A 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft and possession and consumption of cocaine. The man was charged and has been remanded in custody. A 42-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft following the recovery of two chainsaws which were thought to be stolen. Investigations traced them to a hardware store, the owners of which, after checking, confirmed that they were missing the items. Another man was also arrested for suspicion of possession of ganja with intent to supply, consumption of a controlled drug, driving whilst disqualified, using a vehicle without a certificate of road worthiness and using a vehicle licence plate with intent to deceive.
According to the RCIPS the district has many strategies in place to tackle crime including proactive patrols in areas of interest, the monitoring of known criminals and the continuation of the Hot-Spot team. The team is made up of regular and special constables and is tasked with tackling crime and targeting known offenders. The team focuses on licensed premises and areas of interest.
“George Town police work hard to ensure the district remains a safe area for people to live and work and welcomes reports of suspicious behaviour or criminal activity,” the police said.
Meanwhile, nineteen special constables completed the 11-week training course recently and were sworn in to the RCIPS during a special graduation ceremony held on Wednesday 22 October by Acting Commissioner David George.
“These men and women are a very welcome addition to the service,” he said adding that their contribution to ensuring the safety of the Cayman Islands cannot be underestimated. “These are members of the community who are willing to give up their time to assist the police in ensuring the Cayman Islands remain as safe as they are. They are an invaluable resource.”
From this class, seven specials will be assigned to the Bodden Town district, six to George Town and six to West Bay. With an Emergency Medical technician, an electrical engineer, a dentist, a welder, two computer technicians, a computer salesman, a civil servant, a health care assistant, two cashiers, a nursery assistant, a construction worker, two general managers, a taxi/transport operator, an inventory clerk and a retired Fire Chief the volunteers bring a variety of skills to the Special Constabulary.
The team will start work right away with one of their first tasks being to assist with Pirate Week festivities.
“The Special Constables have an integral part to play in policing; they have the same powers as our regular officers, wear a similar uniform and in many cases show as much commitment to the safety of the Cayman Islands as regular officers,” said Inspector Anthony White head of the Training Department. “These officers worked extremely hard over the last 11 weeks and we’re very proud to have them join us.”
The role of the Special Constabulary is to provide efficient and effective operational support to the RCIPS, thereby enhancing the quality of service to the public and assisting the organisation achieve its policing objectives.
The volunteers are unpaid members of the community who are dedicated to protecting the Cayman Islands. The special constable can expect to be involved in assisting the RCIPS to police public events, as well as providing operational support by performing regular police duties under the supervision of full time officers of the RCIPS.
Anyone interested in joining the Special Constabulary should email the Special Commandant on richard.harris@gov.ky.
Anyone with information about crime taking place in the Cayman Islands should contact their local police station or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling crime stoppers remain anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.
Chopper no good says AG
(CNS): Miscommunication, poor documentation and rushed decisions seem to be at the root of the police helicopter fiasco according to a report for the Auditor General’s (AG) office. Following Cabinet’s accusation that the Police Commissioner had misled them over the capabilities of the helicopter and his subsequent denials, Dan Duguay (AG) has said that he was unable to find enough documentation to point fingers but that the helicopter certainly falls short of needs.
However, Duguay has suggested, given that the helicopter was purchased at a price well below its market value if it was to be sold it is likely that the vast majority of costs so far incurred could be recovered. “Evidence presented to me seems to indicate that the helicopter can be sold for most of the funds that have been expended to date on it,” he said in his report. “In other words there seems a good chance that our financial loss may not be significant."
Duguay notes, that the biggest loss is the time already spent acquiring the machine and believes that had more research been undertaken at the start of the project into the details regarding the full requirements of the helicopter and its specific operational capabilities, as well as greater documentation kept throughout the process, things may not have reached this stage.
The AG states that the helicopter purchased does have severe limitations with regards the expectations of Cabinet though not necessarily for law enforcement which is where he believes the communication problems lay. In his report he says that the Commissioner of the Royal Cayman islands Police Service (RCIPS) Stuart Kernohan had specific law enforcement activities in mind when procuring the helicopter which would not necessarily require Instrument Flight Rules capabilities (IFR) as most police operations would require clear visuals to seek out the criminals, consequently Visual Flight Rules (VFR) would have been sufficient. However, as far as Cabinet was concerned any helicopter that was purchased was expected to be capable of engaging in emergency operations and search rescue as well as law enforcement which would require (IFR).
Although Kernohan is currently in the UK as he is suspended from duty as a result of Operation Tempura, Duguay confirms that he discussed the report extensively with Kernohan who believes that the Cabinet was well aware that the helicopter would operate under VFR and not IFR. Duguay notes however, a lack of documentation regarding important meetings between Cabinet and Kernohan and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Cayman Islands (CAAof CI) and Kernohan.
He states that from the very beginning the RCIPS failed to produce a documented needs analysis and that the closest thing to a needs analysis is a Cabinet paper dated 23 November 2006 that defines the government’s expectations which includes emergency evacuations as well as police and border patrol needs. Moreover, Duguay suggests that Kernohan did not appear to define his position to government or the CAA hence the miscommunication.
The AG describes the drive to purchase the helicopter as rushed, although it was clearly good value and more importantly the only one to come on the market for a considerable period. Duguay concludes that even though the commissioner was aware of certain problems relating to IRF, flotation devices and the autopilot, he was unable to confirm if the commissioner (as he asserts) related these problems to the Cabinet or the CAA as there was no supporting documentation for the various meetings that took place between the parties during the procurement process and the refit.
“What was discussed at those meetings is unclear as there were no verbatim minutes of items discussed,” Duguay states in his report and says that he would have thought that Cabinet papers would have been produced for such important meetings.
He says a consultant should have been hired before the purchase rather than after and Duguay states that if the helicopter, currently in Louisiana, is to be sold and the process started again he cites the importance of engaging an expert consultant.
While the AG acknowledges he is no helicopter expert he noted that during the production of the report he learned a number of things and points out that experts note that the list of requirements for this helicopter seem exceptionally wide and that asking for one machine to have such a diverse capability may well be outside the government budget.
Ruling will have serious implications for Cayman
(CNS): Following the completion of submissions and arguments by both sides in Justice Alex Henderson’s Judicial Review, Sir Peter Cresswell, the presiding judge brought from the UK to decide the case, has said he aims to make his ruling on Wednesday of next week. In a complex and highly charged case both sides suggested there would be serious implications for the Cayman Islands regardless of which way the judge decides.
In his closing submission Ramon Alberga, QC, representing Henderson, said that if the ruling was in favour of the special investigation team, represented by Nicholas Purnell, QC, allowing the warrants to stand, there could be by serious repercussions for the Cayman Islands. “If what Mr Purnell says is ruled as true the implications for this jurisdiction are very serious,” said Alberga. “It will remove safeguards for the abuse of power by the police.”
Purnell had argued that the special investigation officers conducting Operation Tempura, who requested a search warrant from a Justice of the Peace (JP) as appose to a magistrate, were not bound to show that JP all of the case evidence but that the oath sworn by the requesting officer was sufficient. Alberga, however, pointed out that the omission of so much information at the time of the arrest warrant was significant, and that had the JP — in this case the Chief Officer in the Ministry of Public Works, Carson Ebanks — had full and frank disclosure he would not have signed the warrants.
Alberga’s legal team demonstrated that for the police to be able to search the home and offices of a High Court judge and seize his computer without full and frank disclosure or explaining the supposed crime of misconduct to an inexperienced lay JP went to the very heart of the principles of freedom and protecting people from the potential abuse of power.
However, Purnell insisted that in almost any situation all that is required of the police to get a warrant is reasonable suspicion on their part and that there is no need for them to prove a crime has been committed or for the JP or magistrate to understand the ingredients that constitute a particular crime.
“It is outside common experience to give the legal ingredients to the magistrate,” said Purnell who added that the question that any JP had to ask to satisfy himself was whether or not the police officer had reasonable suspicion of an offence and nothing more. Purnell said the JP did not have to ask if the police officer had evidence or not as the search warrant was merely part of an investigation to find evidence to turn suspicion into belief. “A warrant is an investigative tool,” said Purnell.
However, in the case of Operation Tempura, the Chief Justice Anthony Smellie had ruled earlier in the year that the tool was more akin to a fishing rod when he refused the Senior Investigating Officer, Martin Bridger, warrants to search the homes of Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan and Chief Superintendent John Jones, accusing Bridger of wanting to go on a fishing trip.
Speaking after the hearing, one member of the special investigation team indicated that if the Judge ruled in favour of quashing the warrants because full details of the case or ingredients of the crime were not given to the JP, he said there would also be serious implications for the jurisdiction.
“If the ruling goes that way then just about every warrant ever issued in Cayman for the last ten years would probably be in question,” he said.
The decision, however, resting with Cresswell, an experienced and well respected legal mind who recently retired from the Commercial and Admiralty Courts, is likely to be influenced by the fact that an unrestricted search was ordered of a judge’s computer, as well as the comprehensive arguments submitted by both sides. Throughout the hearing, Cresswell expressed his concerns that the police were able to take away the entire computer that was used by a high court judge, which was very likely to contain sensitive information about other cases. Referring to it as a "nuclear effect" and that the JP may not have understood the implications of that, it was evident that Cresswell was disturbed by the move.
The judge also made it clear he needed to consider legal precedent in the Cayman Islands which would include the recentrulings of the Chief Justice regarding the previous refusal of a warrant to Bridger and the reasons why. Purnell objected strongly to the judge considering Smellie, as he said his ruling was wrong and regardless of that it was also an ex parte hearing rather than an inter partes hearing which would make it irrelevant. Alberga disagreed and argued that it was a very important authority going to the heart of the current matter.
The subtext of this particular case regarding the mysterious elements of Operation Tempura and the obvious widening of the investigation from the police to the judiciary had a significant influence on the five-day hearing. And while the judge was brought to rule simply on Henderson’s application for judicial review, which essentially stated that the search warrants were unlawful, the back drop to the review made it highly charged.
Over the five days it emerged that there were potentially other members of the judiciary in Bridger’s sights and possibly others acting as witnesses. The reasons for Henderson’s arrest were also discussed during the hearing and in particular Bridger’s assertions in the arrest warrant that Henderson knew the letters to the editor of Cayman Net News (which were highly critical of the judiciary) could not amount to contempt. One of the main pillars of Bridger’s accusation is that Henderson encouraged the former Net News sports reporter, John Evans, to find out the author of the letters, as he told Evans they could be in contempt because of their scurrilous nature even though, Bridger suggests, Henderson knew that was not true.
Alberga however, managed to demonstrate very clearly that indeed the letters could have amounted to contempt and Henderson had a genuine right to be concerned especially as they were not actually written by the people who had purportedly signed them. After Alberga had demonstrated the existence of the offence of scandalizing the court, Purnell eventually conceded that point.
The risky move by the special investigation team to place a longer affidavit written by Bridger with the judge but not the rest of the court and request Public Interest Immunity almost backfired. However, some legal gymnastics headed by Purnell and eventually agreed to by Alberga, saw some 20 paragraphs of the affidavit, which was believed to contain important and sensitive details of the investigation, sealed.
There were many occasions when, questioned by the judge about why specific things had occurred, Purnell refused to answer citing the fact that it would compromise the ongoing investigation, which although connected to the case was not directly linked to Henderson’s arrest.
It also emerged between the lines that Bridger et al could have been seeking evidence against someone else when they sought the warrant for Henderson’s office and computer.
The court adjourned on Friday afternoon and Cresswell said he hoped to give his ruling by Wednesday 29 October, but the complexities may mean he would need longer.
Suspect injured in robbery
(CNS): An attempted robbery in George Town on Thursday night ended with one of the offenders seeking medical attention for a stab wound at the George Town Hospital, where he remained under police guard until he was discharged sometime today. He joined two other men held in custody at George Town Police Station (left) following the attempted armed robbery at Wright’s Barber Shop, Sound Way, in George Town Thursday night, 23 October.
According to the RCIPS, the 911 Emergency Communications Centre received a call from a man at the barber shop just before 7:00 pm reporting that three men, each wearing masks and carrying what appeared to be firearms, entered the shop and demanded money. A struggle ensued which resulted in one of the offenders being injured. The men fled from the shop and made off in a vehicle towards the direction of Welly’s restaurant. No shots were fired.
The suspects were subsequently arrested after seeking medical attention at the hospital. The condition of the injured man is described as critical, but stable. The RCIPS has seized a vehicle for examination and investigations continue.
Police say there does not appear to be anything linking this incident with an armed robbery on Wednesday afternoon.
Anyone who was in the area at the time of the incident is asked to contact Detective Constable Ronald Francis on 526-2578 or Detective Sergeant Colin Oremule on 516-8746. The RCIPS would like to remind the public that the safest action to take in the event of a robbery is to hand over the goods demanded, as attempts to defend oneself could put individuals in danger.
Anyone with information on this incident should contact George Town CID on 949-
4222 or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling crime stoppers remain
anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.
Auction at Grand Old House
(CNS): The Cayman Islands National Trust is celebrating 100 years of the Grand Old House on Saturday, 25 October with a champagne reception, dinner with wine and a unique auction of antiquities and artifacts relating to 1908. There will also be live music and story telling of old-time Cayman.
The event $150 per person and starts at 6:30pm at The Grand Old House, South Church Street. Proceeds to benefit the Mission House, a National Trust historic site in Bodden Town. RSVP: 949-0121 or info@nationaltrust.org.ky
Live Auction items include a Pocket watch- sterling silver, Swiss cylinder, c1905, provided by Artifacts; a 1908 Cayman Islands Stamp- the controversial 1 penny stamp with a ½ penny overprint, donated by Artifacts; and the Complete Works of Robert Burns – Scottish Poet (6 volumes); 1908 Armagnac (Castarede), provided by Grand Old House.
Contact the National Trust for full list.
Charities benefit at Open House
(CNS): The Humane Society, the Cancer Society and the Red Cross will all benefit from a raffle at the annual Christmas Open House and Customer Appreciation Evening at Celebrations Enchanted Store in the Mirco Centre next Tuesday.
The Holiday Season event on Tuesday, 28 October from 4:30 pm until 8:30 pm. Tickets on sale in-store now to win one of three beautiful wreaths in our raffle in aid of the three chosen charities. Entertainment will be provided by Janine Stabler, Devon Edie & Cayman National Choir, and food by Fusion & Refreshments will be served.
Weekend sporting events
(CNS): The Brenda Lund 5K Run/Walk, the CUC 800m Sea Swim, and the Triathlon Build-up Race are all happening this weekend. The Brenda Tibbetts Lund Memorial 5K Run/Walk on 25 October. Registration begins at 5:30 am at Public Beach, race starts at 6:00am. Registration for the CUC 800m Sea Swim begins Saturday 3:00 pm at Governor’s Beach for a 4:00 pm start.
The Cayman Islands Triathlon Build-up Race on Sunday 26 October has a 6:30am registration on Governor’s Way (street across from south end of Public Beach).
For details on the United Nations 2 Mile Run on Sunday Oct. 26 – contact Coach Jerry Harper 945-3970.
Future events: Cycling Stage Race – open to all locals, with professional and elite riders competing by invitation, 8 to 10 November. Register here.