DG lauds defendant as excellent worker

Franz Manderson, Cayman Islands Deputy Governor

(CNS): The deputy governor told the court Monday that he was shocked when he heard that the acting Work Permit Board secretary, Tichina Rickfield, had been accused of altering the immigration department database without authority. Franz Manderson said he had worked with her for fifteen years and she was an excellent and trusted hard worker.

Although called as crown witness, Manderson spoke very highly of Rickfield and confirmed her claims that she was having problems with Cheryl Miller, the director of boards, at the time that he was the chief immigration officer.

Rickfield has said that the accusations that she deliberately altered some 15 random different pieces of data on the immigration system over a twelve month period from the many thousands that were inputted are false allegations. The defendant claims she suffered victimization at the hands of her immediate boss, Miller, and other workers in what was described as a toxic environment at the department, where back-stabbing, bullying and lies were common.

Manderson made it clear that although log-ins were unique and staff were not supposed to share passwords, the workload was enormous and the burden fell on secretarial staff. He said it was possible, albeit a breach of regulations, that Rickfield did allow clerks assisting her to use her password. He confirmed the massive workload and said Rickfield was instrumental in helping to clear it. He said that staff were under immense pressure, not just from him but the board chairs as well, to clear the significant backlog, especially during the boom years, after Hurricane Ivan and before the crash, when the number of work permits grew to a record 26,000.

He confirmed that when he left the department in 2009, the relationship between Rickfield and Miller was “acrimonious”. “They were not getting on at all,” he told the court.

The deputy governor said he had made efforts to improve matters but he admitted Miller had her favourites and Rickfield was not one of them. He said Rickfield got along with most of the other staff at the department but had trouble with Miller. He spoke about how she was a trusted, conscientious worker, praised by the board chairs and many others and had been promoted many times. He said Rickfield worked long hours and was committed to the job and he never had any reason not to trust her or ever doubt her honesty. The deputy governor said Miller had made complaints about her but, he said, she never brought any concrete evidence to him of what was wrong.

Manderson revealed that he was aware of a complaint from Sharon Roulstone, the former Work Permit Board chair, about false allegations against Rickfield long before she was suspended. Since the allegations were proved to be completely unfounded, the situation was threatening to undermine the running of the board at the time. Manderson said that Rickfield had raised her concerns about the victimization she was suffering and predicted that after he left she would be pushed out within six months.

The senior investigating officer on the case, Ingrid Spence, was the final live witness in the crown’s case. During cross-examination she confirmed that during the course of the five-year long investigation into the allegations against Rickfield the police were not given all of the documents from immigration that supported Rickfield’s version of events until the defence requested them.

As a result of a busy court docket the trial was adjourned on Monday until Thursday, when the crown is expected to close its case against Rickfield.