Immigration a ‘toxic’ workplace

(CNS): False allegations, bullying and backstabbing in a “toxic environment” was how the workplace at the immigration department was described Wednesday by a defence attorney representing Tichina Rickfield, as she asked the chief immigration officer (CIO) about the events surrounding her client’s suspension and subsequent charges.

CIO Linda Evans, who is now also on required leave as a result of allegations made about her by others in the department, said that describing it as toxic was a “strong statement” because not everyone was like that, she said, but there was a small minority of people who were backstabbing and making false allegations.

However, Evans denied that her situation was the same as that which led to the charges against Rickfield, who is accused of deliberately altering the immigration database to override decisions made by the Work Permit Board. Evans said that the changes made by Rickfield were there to be seen and the allegations against the former board secretary were not part of a witch-hunt, as suggested, but supported by the documentation. As for her position, Evans said she was confident that she would be vindicated.

Evans has now been on required leave for more than two months and she confirmed in the dock that she was now aware of the allegations against her but not who had made those allegations.  Defence attorney Fiona Robertson suggested that Evans was now the victim of the same and possibly now worse “toxic environment” and disgraceful bullying and backstabbing that thrived in the department and which Evans had not addressed when Rickfield was the victim.

“Because then it was not you,” the lawyer suggested. “You went along with it as at least it wasn’t you being victimized at that time.”

She asked Evans if she was aware of complaints from an earlier board chair that false allegations had been made about Rickfield that were completely unfounded. Evans said she was not but insisted that Rickfield was not a victim but had deliberately made the changes.

But despite claims by the crown that the irregularities in the system attributed to Rickfield were made by her alone and were deliberate, the changes were thrown into question when it became clear that the documentation was inaccurate and confusing, protocols were not strictly observed, that other staff had also made alterations that seemed unsupported or wrong, that there was a massive backlog of work, and that other people may have been using Rickfield’s login details because of that excessive workload.

Rickfeld is accused of making 15 unauthorised changes to the database over a twelve month period from January 2009 until January 2010 when she was acting as the board secretary. During that time she and the other Work Permit Board staff were inputting thousands of pieces of information, as some 15,000 work permits a year were being handled by that board annually. Evans agreed that the irregularities attributed to Rickfield were less than 0.01% of the data she was inputting.

The crown has offered no motive for what they say were deliberate and unauthorised changes made by Rickfield nor any connections among the cases involved. However, it was revealed that a year after the allegations were made against her and she was asked to respond in writing, the legal firm she instructed to help with the formal response was Travers Thorp Alberga, one of the firms that, according to the crown, had a work permit application expedited by Rickfield.

The case against Rickfield comes at a time of several workplace suspensions at the Department of Immigration and various internal and police probes as a result of allegations and counter allegations about senior and lower level DoI staff.

The trial continues Thursday before a jury and Justice Charles Quin in Grand Court Five.