The Editor Speaks: Just what ‘game’ is Bridger playing?
Martin Bridger was the ‘scapegoat’ for the Operation Tempura fiasco that has already cost the Cayman public millions of dollars. Estimates vary from $15M to $30M!!
However, as the man in charge, who made a very handsome salary and produced precisely nothing but great debt to the Cayman Islands, I for one have no sympathy for him.
Yes, when things got bad he was dropped like a red hot potato and when he left our shores most of us said ‘good riddance’.
Bridger is now claiming that he was misled by none other than ex-Cayman Governor Stuart Jack. Jack was the man who made the decision to bring in outside help to investigate police corruption. He was advised by then RCIPS Commissioner Stuart Kernohan, who then found himself the subject of an investigation, sent home and then fired.
The man originally in charge was former Assistant Commissioner of the UK Metropolitan Police John Yates. He actually was the man who dumped Bridger on us. Bridger being a colleague, police officer and friend.
Then we have Foreign and Commonwealth official Larry Covington who also seems to have had a say in who came down to investigate the police corruption.
Cayman’s Attorney General, Samuel Bulgin, was overseeing the legal part of the investigations, albeit what he was led to believe by Bridger and another individual, Tempura’s legal adviser, Martin Polaine.
Polaine’s legal advice has been determined to be incorrect and cost us dearly when he advised the arrest of Cayman Islands Grand Court Justice Alexander Henderson. $1.25M in damages to be precise.
We have no love for you either, Mr. Polaine. He was then disbarred because he had dispensed legal advice without having been called to Cayman’s bar – and I don’t mean one in a drinking establishment. He has now since been reinstated and it would seem he wasn’t such a bad chap after all. I am not laughing, though.
Polaine was a friend of Bridger’s!
As Bridger has now filed a complaint locally, alleging “very senior Crown servants” that includes Jack, Bulgin and Covington, lied to him during the course of the corruption probe, I expect to hear Polaine will be doing something similar except this will be claim for damages!
Jack has not surprisingly fought back saying his claims were “undermined by the documentary evidence. It is Mr. Bridger who is misleading the police and wasting police time. It is high time for him to be held accountable for his irresponsible and damaging behavior.”
Absolutely.
So what game is Bridger actually playing?
The man he was supposedly investigating was the now deceased owner of Cayman Net News, Desmond Seales, who supposedly had a high-ranking police informant in his pocket. Deputy Commissioner Anthony Ennis was thought to be the culprit.
Two of Seales’ employees, Lyndon Martin and John Evans, were asked to enter their boss’ office and find corroborating evidence that Ennis was the mole. It was bungled as an alarm went off.
Bridger announced publicly that there was nothing against Seales but their investigations had uncovered a much larger level of corruption. Seales was not the subject of any investigations and later Bridger and Seales seemed to become ‘friendly’.
When Tempura had found there was no evidence to link Ennis to Seales that should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t. In February 2008 it is on record the UK’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Authority received “a requirement to support Operation Tempura”.
“Suitable ex-officers were considered for this role. With Metropolitan Police Authority authorisation contracts were put in place with two companies to provide the services of appropriate contractors for this investigation. Contractors were successfully engaged under contract to support this operation with all costs reclaimable from the Cayman Islands.
“When the first phase of Operation Tempura came to an end Assistant Commissioner John Yates reached an agreement with the Cayman Islands that contractors would be engaged directly by the Cayman Islands rather than through the MPS.”
Bridger retired from the MPS and rather than working as a Special Constable in the Cayman Islands he continued under a contract as a consultant as Senior Investigating Officer.
The MPS had I believe already made plans to engage Bridger long before he retired! One of the companies mentioned by Yates was Bridger’s own MMB Associate Consultants.
It would appear that even before it was decided the Seales/Ennis link was dead Tempura was in for the long haul.
Bridger maintains the job offer was “unexpected” and if he had known the full facts the operation would have ended in two weeks.
Two weeks!!!
That would have been a blessing.
So how much more now is Bridger going to cost us with this new complaint? Is this just a tactic so he can file eventually a lawsuit against the Cayman Islands for damages or for some under the table settlement?
Certainly there is some explosive stuff contained in the Tempura documents that so many persons in authority do not want to be made public.
However, Bridger is playing with fire and you know what happens when you do that……
Colin
many thanks for that comment. It sums the situation up very nicely.
Personally, I think the criminal complaint is just a cheap shot to delay in the on-going civil litigation even further but that’s only an opinion.
However, I would just like to correct the impression given that the search of Desmond’s office on 3 September 2007 was bungled.
There were in fact two searches. The first took place on 30 August. It was undertaken by Lyndon Martin and that was indeed aborted after the alarm failed to shut down properly – at least that is the accepted version. I wasn’t there so can’t verify that.
On 3 Sept I also had a false start because of incomplete information about the alarm system – it went off! But I let it shut down automatically then went back in. This time the search was 100% successful.
What people forget is that the object of my search had more to do with attempting to verify the presence or absence of material purported to prove the leak of material than seizing evidence. At that point there were plenty of allegations flying around but absolutely no evidence was being presented. The negative result of the search only served to confirm suspicions that the alleged Seales/Ennis link was a complete fabrication. In fact the officers running Tempura came to exactly the same conclusion within weeks of arriving on Grand Cayman and started looking for other dirt to dig up.
At the time of the first search I have proof that Met Police were already involved at the highest possible level. In fact the Chief Constable of the day, Sir Ian Blair, had been contacted on 30 August by Leigh Turner, then Director OT, who in turn had passed the matter on to John Yates. If Bridger’s claim that he was not fully briefed is in any way true then the people at fault seem to be his now-retired superiors at the Met not the Governor or anyone else at the FCO.