Bridger finally off the hook over Tempura

Martin Bridger, SIO of Operation Tempura

(CNS): The senior investigating officer on the long-running and ill-fated police corruption probe, Operation Tempura, will not be charged. More than four years after then police commissioner David Baines announced that Martin Bridger had himself become the subject of investigation over what information he may have revealed to the media about the controversial inquiry, the RCIPS confirmed Thursday that the director of public prosecutions had issued a legal ruling that there would be no criminal prosecution against him or his colleague on the investigation, Richard Coy. A spokesperson for the police said the men had been advised of the ruling and that the case is now closed.

The allegations against Bridger were never fully spelled out by the police and at no time over the last four years was he interviewed about the accusations of wrongdoing, while the allegations hung over his head and hampered his own claims about the mishandling of the inquiry by local and British officials.

The discredited probe began more than ten years ago when Bridger arrived in Cayman undercover, posing as a real estate agent, with a fellow officer from London’s Metropolitan Police to investigate allegations that the late Desmond Seales, publisher of Cayman Net News, was in a corrupt relationship with Deputy Commissioner Anthony Ennis. It took Bridger less than three weeks to work out that those allegations were utterly unfounded and had essentially stemmed from rumour, speculation and the distorted imaginations of two employees at the newspaper, Lyndon Martin and John Evans.

But the British cop began to turn his attention to the police management and they way they had handled the report of the allegations when they were made to the RCIPS, in particular the possible illegal entry into the newspaper’s offices in search of evidence to support the accusations that had been made.

Bridger’s team then began investigating other elements of the probe, which led to the arrest, later deemed illegal, of a high court judge and the resulting costly payout. They also looked at other allegations of police corruption, which led to then deputy police commissioner Rudi Dixon being tried and acquitted of misconduct, for which he, too, was given an undisclosed major payout.

The investigation, which rolled on for many years, also saw then police commissioner Stuart Kernohan and chief superintendent John Jones suspended from their jobs. Kernohan was eventually sacked and, following a protracted dispute with government, he was also paid off; John Jones eventually returned to his job after years on leave with full pay.

The probe cost tens of millions of dollars and did not secure a single prosecution.

In March last year, after a protracted fight with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the governor’s office released a controversial report about a complaint filed by the original legal advisory on the probe team, Martin Polaine. Known as the Aina Report, the document revealed allegations against members of the judiciary.

However, Bridger has maintained that Benjamin Aina QC, who investigated the complaint, did not see all of the relevant evidence and the report does not tell the full story, leaving questions unanswered, including the role of, and decisions made about, the mysterious FCO territories security advisor, Larry Covington.

The released report was redacted, but at the time it was made public the governor’s office said it would consider the release of the full report when the inquiry against Bridger ended. As it now has, CNS has contacted the governor’s office to request the un-redacted version. We have also contacted Bridger for comment and are awaiting responses from both him and the governor.