CoP silent on Tempura ‘truth’

(CNS): As the governor refuses to release documents relating to the ongoing fallout of Operation Tempura, the police boss, David Baines, has also refused to answer questions about his investigation into the conduct of Attorney General Sam Bulgin, former governor Stuart Jack and Larry Covington, the UK’s OT security advisor during the ill-fated probe. Although former police commissioner Stuart Kernohan and former chief superintendent John Jones both indicated under oath, when presented by the crown as witnesses of truth, that the three UK officials were aware of the covert entry into a local newspaper, the current police commissioner has decided they didn't know about the planned alleged break-in. But Baines has not explained his findings or indicated if the RCIPS will be pursuing Kernohan and Jones for perjury.

Baines’ decision to dismiss the report of possible misconduct by Jack, Covington and Bulgin seems at odds with the position the authorities had previously taken over the evidence given by Jones and Kernohan. Baines is also understood to have dismissed the allegations that the senior officials did not reveal what they knew about the plans to look for evidence of police corruption in the Cayman Net News offices without interviewing anyone involved.

The latest twist in the Tempura internal police investigation about who knew what and when regarding what the lead investigator of the ill-fated enquiry, Martin Bridger, claims he believed was a break-in at a local newspaper office has raised serious questions which have not been answered by the RCIPS.

Although Baines said that Jack, Covington and Bulgin were all exonerated, he has not explained why it is that neither Kernohan nor Jones have been pursued for perjury after they had both alleged that their bosses knew all about the plans to look for evidence in relation to allegations of RCIPS corruption in the office of the late Desmond Seales, owner of Net News.

The men revealed the chain of events under oath, as crown witnesses during the trial of Lyndon Martin who was charged with burglary in relation to the alleged break-in to the Net News offices and perverting the course of justice in 2009.

Both men are also understood to have documented evidence that the plan to use reporters from the paper to find possible evidence before the RCIPS took official action against an alleged security leak was discussed at the highest level on a number of occasions.

With Baines' categorical opinion, despite what appears to be a limited investigation, that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the then governor, the UK’s OT security advisor and the attorney general, there are a number of anomalies that the RCIPS boss is refusing to answer.

Martin Bridger is still seeking to demonstrate to the Cayman public that everything he did during his time heading up the probe was based on legal advice given by representatives of the AG’s chambers and the governor’s office and basedon what those men had told him, and has raised his own doubts about what they knew.

Bridger says he became aware only towards the end of his time in Cayman that both Kernohan and Jones could have evidence that supported their claims that Jack, Covington and Bulgin all knew how the RCIPS management intended to handle the corruption allegations in the first instance before a decision was made to call in Scotland Yard.

Bridger now claims that he had always assumed from the start of the Tempura investigation that Jones and Kernohan “were on a frolic of their own” but if, as they claim, they had told Jack or Covington or Bulgin or all three, he would have packed up and left Cayman two weeks after he arrived. This then raises the question of who really is to blame for a probe, which found nothing of substance but cost the tax payer millions of dollars.

As a result of his own mounting suspicions about who did or did not tell him the truth when he was heading up the enquiry, Bridger filed a complaint with his former bosses in the case, the Metropolitan police, as he said if Kernohan and Jones were telling the truth this meant the UK officials in Cayman had misled not just him but Scotland Yard as well.

As a result, the Met handed over the enquiry to Baines but he exonerated Jack, Covington and Bulgin, but sources say this was without interviewing Bridger, Jones or Kernohan. Baines blamed Bridger for not turning up to an interview with the evidence he claimed he had. However, given that Bridger is fighting the authorities here to use this evidence and other important evidence collected during Tempura in his own legal battles against Kernohan, he said he had concerns about the terms on which such meetings could take place.

As obvious conflicts over the management and direction of Tempura continue, the governor is also pressing ahead with her fight on behalf of the UK office in Cayman — another legal battle to make sure the lid stays firmly closed on the file holding other details about the bungled enquiry. But the latest twists continue to fuel public concerns that the authorities are conspiring to cover up incompetence, mismanagement or some other potentially embarrassing action relating to the issue, which has dragged on for seven years.

Although CNS has submitted a number of questions to the RCIPS about the parts played by the various characters in the enquiry prior to the arrival of Bridger and his Scotland Yard team, they have been ignored. The commissioner has failed to state how his internal probe has concluded that Jack, Covington and Bulgin knew nothing at all about the covert entry and how that sits with the evidence given by both Kernohan and Jones in court when they were presented as crown witnesses of truth.