Former Cayman governor silent on Tempura probe
(CNS): The British media has again picked up on the continuing controversy and secrecy surrounding Operation Tempura, the UK-led tarnished investigation into alleged corruption in the RCIPS. In an article published in Thursday’s edition of the UK daily, The Independent, former governor Stuart Jack has refused to answer questions that he knew all about the bungled but authorized so-called break-in to the offices of Cayman Net News by staff looking for incriminating evidence against the deputy police commissioner, who had been accused of leaking sensitive information to the late owner, Desmond Seales.
Martin Bridger now believes that his entire investigation, which has cost the Cayman Islands millions of dollars, was based from the very start on a false premise. Bridger, the senior investigating officer in Operation Tempura, says that it is now apparent that Jack did know that the former police commissioner, Stuart Kernohan, had authorized staff at the newspapers to gain entry to their workplace after hours to look for evidence to back up what were serious allegations.
Kernohan, who was later sacked. has always maintained that the decision to authorize the so-called break-in was done with the full support of the governor and the FCO’s regional security advisor, Larry Covington.
With the current governor and the FCO still trying to keep a lid on what really happened, both Martin Bridger and Stuart Kernohan, once on very opposite sides of the fall out of the investigation, appear to be converging in their efforts for the full truth about Operation Tempura to now be revealed. Both men told the Independent that they believe the truth must come out but it seems too many people have too much to hide.
Category: Crime
John Evans and friends can blab on as much as they want the simple truth is Mr Bridger found things here that some people would prefer to keep hidden. Those who sent him did not expect him to do his job? Corruption never has been compulsory. When virtue is lost benevolence appears, When benevolence is lost right conduct appears,when right conduct is lost,expedience appears. Expendience is the mere shadow of right and truth, It is the begining of disorder! Our current state!
Papa Smurf is baaack!!!
When the good guys and gals try to put the lid on corruption, they must do it while working within the law.
When the bad guys and gals (aka corrupt persons of interest) try to protect themselves and their stooges, the can work outside the law by lying, cheating, planting false evidence, and going to church (sitting in the front pews by the way).
The playing field in this sport is definitely not level and we, the public, have no idea who is straight and who is bent.
Who cares. This is getting boring and everyone is pushing their own agenda. Unless the CI government is getting some of the money back, keep all the crap in the UK. The local people know the truth: some are in denial and have their own agendas and the others are disappointed that the truth wasn't exposed for everyone to see.
I think we can all unite in stating
"We don't know Jack"
In my opinion, the problem with this whole terrible situation started in the very beginning when persons believed that what Desmond Seales told them was actually 100% truth. Anyone used to dealing with him should have understood that it was a lot of embelishment. Had that been appreciated then the whole situation could have been cleared up easier and without the terrible consequences.
I was hoping I would never see Papa Smurf ever again…Don't ever have him come back here again
This is the same Stuart Jack who called a Commission of Inquiry into Chuckie's exposure of the corruption in government but refused to call a Commission of Inquiry into the corruption that Chuckie exposed !!!
Look at where we are today Cayman because of Stuart Jack's poor decisions and bending to McKeeva Bush. But the Chuckster cometh again !!!
Thanks, Charles, for that comment.
"Chuckie's exposure of the corruption in Government"? Or Chuckie's self serving abuse of his responsibilities as a civil servant, former or otherwise, in order to advance his political career?
Thanks, Charles, the Chuckster is indeed coming again, but where is he going? Parliament or nowhere?
Like Bridger's 'letter to press' issued on 2nd April this is just another desperate attempt to stop the proverbial noose tightening round his neck. I know why this nonsense was concocted but for sound legal reasons I'm not saying anything further apart from observing that you will very likely be reading more about this next week.
John, if you don't want to comment here why did you post the comment below on another website – it seems you and Bridger are simply playing different versions of the same game.
The Met don’t have any powers to investigate things that happened in the Cayman Islands unless Duncan Taylor or David Baines invite them in – it’s a question (of) jurisdiction – and Bridger knows that. The Met’s DPS won’t even investigate complaints against their own officers so trying to get them to take on the FCO is a joke.
As for the search, which I undertook, it was authorised under UK police powers known as RIPA. That authorisation involved then OT Director Leigh Turner, Larry Covington who is the FCO’s local law enforcement expert and then Assistant Commissioner John Yates at New Scotland Yard. In fact it was Yates who not only gave Bridger the job as head of Operation Tempura but then confirmed his continued employment (at £747 a day) when the Met retired him in April 2008.
To be blunt, if Bridger didn’t know exactly what had gone on it was because he and his team weren’t smart enough to ask the right questions. The people who I was dealing with were a joke, one officer flew out without his reading glasses and the statements they prepared looked like they’d been written by semi-literate 10-year-olds. The concept that this was a ‘crack’ team of experienced investigators was blown wide open when Comfort Suites, where they was based, had an armed robbery one night and none of them noticed.
This is a stunt by Bridger to avoid responsibility for his actions, which include the unlawful arrest of both Justice Henderson and Burmon Scott plus the malicious prosecution of Lyndon Martin and Rudi Dixon.
Justice Cresswell described Bridger’s conduct in the Henderson arrest as the, “gravest abuse of the process,” something that has never been fully addressed although is was a damning indictment of gross misconduct. Bridger’s legal advisor, Martin Polaine, was later disbarred for his role in the fiasco. Bridger and Polaine are now business partners.
It’s all a joke and for an experienced journalist like Paul Peachey to get sucked into this con does rather surprise me.
John Evans
And you're helping me play that game 🙂
Why don't some people just move on and get a life? It is like a spiral ofmediocre people doing mediocre things in a mediocre way all trying to prove that someone else involved is slightly more mediocre than they are.
This story needs to read in the context of your earlier piece headed 'Ex-London cop speaks out on RCIPS probe secrecy'. When you put the two together none of it all makes very little sense and it is rather frightening that this clown was paid a vast amount of money from public funds to conduct very sensitive investigations.
And any possibility that the controversy might fade away has just been dispelled, with the Metropolitan Police asked to investigate whether Mr Jack – and other senior Foreign Office officials – misled Yard detectives.
They might as well release the documentation that is under judicial review at the moment now in regards to the FOI Commisioner's ruling.
This matter is going to be thoroughly investigated in the UK now, by both the Met and the British press…and the British press do love a juicy scandal to tuck into.
So, good people of the FCO…and Governor Duncan Taylor….
'Fess up' and get it over with.
Confession is always good for the soul.
CNS and other digging locally started this…if the british press has also got its teeth into it then the truth will come regardless of any injunctions…they are relentless
Yes, but the Met have no juridiction in the Cayman Islands. Bridger can make all the complaints he wants and the response will be first 'why did you wait five years to tell us this' then 'sorry not on our patch'. The phrase p***ing into the wind seems to fit here and this, along with all the legal funding he's had from the Met, is a scandalous waste of my council tax payments. Bridger doesn't live in London so the Met aren't even local police force. This is just grandstanding.
CNS, this is really old news.
I'm sure one of your stories either last year, or even the year before, settled the issue of who knew about the search when emails were released showing Jack, Covington, OT Minister Leigh Turner and John Yates, the man who sent Bridger to the Cayman Islands, were all involved in this at least four days before the search took place. Am I right?
As for Bridger's complaint to the Met referred to in the article. I wonder why he has waited four years to make it? I don't suppose the fact that the Met has just stopped funding his legal costs and are currently investigating his removal of confidential records from Tempura (your story on this was about two weeks ago) had anything to do with it?
CNS are reporting that there was an article in UK paper on Thursday (yesterday), not saying that this is a new story.
Well that's not the way the story reads.
In nearly 40 years living in Cayman, Jack was probably the most ineffectual Governor Cayman ever experienced.
Alan Scott??
Alan Scott realised McKeeva was an ignorant undereducated loudmouthed populist fraud put in power by low intelligent West Bayers and banned him from Government House because of his anti-British and anti -Scott rantings. At the time, he got little support for this "UK colonial stuff" from Caymanians but of course now it is clear he was correct.
There are several special agent's who operates out of Florida USA – who replaced Brian Gibbs when he got "booted out" of Cayman years ago. These agents actually create's computer passwords to give members of the RCIPS access to OCTRICS – which is the Overseas Caribbean Territories Regional Intelligence Crime System. This system stores 100% of all incoming RCIPS reports/incidents, witness statements, defendant interviews, complete case file preparations, incoming intelligence and criminal analysis. This enables the FCO and other UK interest's – to keep a "watchful eye" without the need of having a physical being in it's territories, since Gibb got kicked out. It was introduced to the UK overseas territores around the late 1990's. It's mandatory that all RCIPS officers use this system. Talk about a "treasure trove" of information this system has which would shed a lot of light on the whole "Operation Tempura" fiasco and so much more.
I can guarantee you nothing from the early days of Tempura (which is the interesting part) went into any sort of system like this. Read the news stories from about a year ago and you'll find that all those records have officially disappeared although they have since re-emerged as part of Mr Bridger's defence to the Kernohan claim. In fact the Tempura team included an IT expert for about five months in 2008 but nobopdy knows what he was actually doing, he left right after the Henderson arrest. There's a lot being covered up here, not just by the FCO but also by the former investigation team leader himself.
There's a lot being covered up here, not just by the FCO but also by the former investigation team leader himself.
Including the fact that the then Governor and he sought advice from a very senior retired member of Caymans elite, who was asked to review evidence and advise. He didnt support their views or proposals, so his phone didnt ring again! Fairly typical of their approach throughout!
Hope it all comes out in the end!