UK cops join RCIPS management team
RCIPS Superintendents Robert Graham (left) and Peter Lansdown
(CNS): Two senior British police officers, both recruited by former police commissioner David Baines before he left his post this week, have joined the RCIPS command team. Peter Lansdown and Robert Graham have joined as superintendents and, as of today, now head up specialist operations and district operations in what may be seen by many as retrograde step in succession planning.
Detective Superintendent Lansdown is now head of Specialist Operations, including the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Financial Crimes Unit (FCU), Drugs and Serious Crime, and the Joint Intelligence Unit. Police Superintendent Graham has taken over District Operations. which includes all uniformed policing, the Air Support Unit, Armed Response Unit (USG), Joint Marine Unit, Community/Neighbourhood Policing and Traffic Management.
Acting CoP Anthony Ennis said, “With the appointments of these highly experienced and capable professionals that were made by the former commissioner of police, it was decided that a slight realignment between the two key operational commands is more appropriate to meet existing challenges, leadership gaps and operational demands that can be planned, managed and directed to ensure public safety is not compromised, and that our officers have the leadership and support required to discharge their duties. However, the command structure remains dynamic and flexible to accommodate any changes that the new Commissioner of Police might pursue.”
Between them the two new officers have some fifty-four years of policing and investigative experience.
Lansdown, a native of London, is a career detective with thirty-two years of policing experience with the Metropolitan Police Service in London, during which time he achieved the rank of detective superintendent. Officials said he had “deep expertise in a number of specialist investigative areas, specifically homicide investigation, serious and organized crime, covert operations, firearms, financial investigations and intelligence”.
He managed the Homicide and Serious Crime Department, supervising over 100 detectives over five years, and also led major proactive operations, both in London and internationally, including the Caribbean, to reduce gang and firearms criminality. For the past four years he has also been head of Senior Detective Training at the prestigious Crime Academy at the Metropolitan Police Service, experience which will be an asset to for the RCIPS’ corporate professional development and succession planning.
Outside of work, Lansdown is eager for the opportunity to build on his 15 years of volunteer work with youth by volunteering with the Cayman Cadet Corps.
“While throughout my career I have seen time and again how effective enforcement and police investigations do make a society safer,” he said. “I believe that the empowerment of youth is how we make any real drop in crime sustainable.”
Graham, who will direct Uniform and District Operations, possesses twenty-two years of police service in Kent, where he served as head of intelligence and head of Kent Special Branch. He also served as the uniformed borough commander in Maidstone, where he was responsible for the coordination and management of over three hundred officers and staff.
Graham has managed all aspects of specialist operations, including management of serious crime, and achieved the rank of detective chief inspector in 2006.
Among his many experiences Graham said that his secondment as uniformed operations commander to South Australia in 2006 stands out. There he was tasked with managing a busy police force from the moment he landed, not unlike his current posting with the RCIPS. That experience taught him how to adapt, and adapt quickly, to new situations through an eagerness to learn.
“The core principles of policing are very much the same all over the world, and sharing good practice between policing organisations and learning from each other is always a very worthwhile process,” he said. “It is a real privilege to serve in RCIPS.”
I knew of both officers as I worked in Met Police and Kent Police. Both would have received their pensions Mr Graham did 30 years 8 RAF 22 police so will have his pension as will the other officer they are obviously very keen to continue police careers even after they have retired and do not have to I suppose ?
I believe Mr Graham retired in 2013 he must have got bored in retirement but can put his useful experience to good use again with the Cayman Islands police.
I am retired to since 2007 after 30 years but I want to enjoy retirement not keep on working what’s the point the pensions are good. So the question could be are their new careers for money or their commitment to policing?
If Baines got the boot, then why is he the one recruiting???
SMH
When you reach a ripe old age like myself you get to see a lot of the same old thing amounting to nothing. Of all these people that come here with glowing references, many leave in disgrace or simply quit when they have made enough money. Mostly in government and statutory authorites. We make the same mistake over and over again. Why would these people come here if it wasn’t to make money, who can blame them? Why would their hearts be for Cayman? I have no doubt some of these people bring a wealth of experience, but we do little to capitalize on it, by identifying a Caymanian to be the understudy. The current COP left bitter when he had no reason to be. He collected a years salary for doing nothing, but he XXXXX fired political departing shots, not the mentality we need, but go back and read his resume and you wonder if it is the same person.
Welcome, gents, and hope to see you making lots of collars, particularly for dangerous driving. How many of our motorists from the 130 plus countries represented here ever obtained a license is a complete mystery.
CNS, please let me get one example off my chest, it’s been really bugging me. About a month or so ago I was sat at the head of the line on a red light on the West Bay Road at the junction with the Harquail headed south towards George Town. To my utter amazement, a small white Japanese make car appeared to my right (having driven up the lane intended for traffic turning right from the Harquail). The maniac driving then veered right (wrong side of the road) then sharp right, then left through the junction, to rejoin the West Bay Road, and drove down the turning lane towards GT. Simply staggering – in 45 years of driving I have NEVER seen anything like it. and if the driver is reading this, or the idiot grinning middle-aged male sat in the passenger’s seat, you are both certifiable morons, and you came within a hair’s breadth of me catching up to you and reducing the length of your rollerskate of a car by about two feet courtesy of my Silverado 1500. (Thanks, CNS!)
Welcome both, don’t expect a pensions n though past 2024!
If Caymanian police officers want top jobs, they have to work overseas for a period of time to gain experience of Real crime, in the Real World. Same with the hospitality industry. Go and learn the trade, and qualify, in Switzerland, Austria, France, UK/US, where hotel and restaurant management is a “profession”, and the employees at whatever level are very proud of their skills – they do not see their positions as “servile”.
This makes no sense; why would you need to leave the island to qualify to work on the same island?
I would say that’s a waste of time and resources.
There’s nothing wrong with expats coming here with experience from abroad but to say all Caymanians must leave Cayman and gain experience to earn high-level positions here on island is BS.
Not surprised, the governor is in charge of the police so to think she would have chosen anyone else is naivety. Im more concerned about the new wiretapping law changes that were just passed. For those that would say, ” i have nothing to hide so they can go ahead and look” are missing the point. Your right to privacy is all but gone thanks to this 1984 surveillance state set up here that no one seems to be getting upset at.
I don’t envy the mess Robert Graham inherits with Baines’ JMU and ACU. We need to restore some functional offshore nocturnal capability stat if we are to have any impact on the transshipment economies, even if it is a main employer in some districts!
We need qualified police here, let’s hope they get to work quickly.
I am so sick and tired of you people who thinks that Caymanians shouldn’t hold top Jobs in Cayman. This is their country and rightly so they should be at the helm. XXXXX Baines shouldn’t have been involved in the selection process. So haters I don’t care how you all feel about my statement but either you like it or lump it.
British territory. Don’t forget it. “Your country”? Really? Then go independent. No? Too greedy and spineless. Then suck it up.
Sounds like you’d had a couple when you scribbled this, sportsfan. But given that, I do admire your ability to use perfect spelling and punctuation under the influence, a quality, sadly, I do not possess, hence the early evening time of this post. Thank you.
Us Brits spel real good.
Look, dammit, just tell us what you really think, okay?. I’m tired of all this innuendo and ambiguity.
I would guess then it is time look at your own governance and self determination. I suspect that once the RCIPS chief officers are in place from now on, succession planning will be built in. Once this is across the board, a natural course to Caymanisation and ultimately, independence from the UK will take place.
Things are changing daily. There are a lot of angry people out there who have sat and watched MLA people get richer. Local and expat alike are all being screwed over their pensions, cost of living, bank fees, etc.
The recipe is all good for a transition to worse times ahead.
I will lump it until such a time that you are commissioner of police based on your passport and nothing else.
At that point I will take the leave option.
HERE WE GO AGAIN. incredible incentive to Caymanian prospects to join the RCIP, OR, for qualified ones to remain in the service and aspire to rise to the top. Anyone know why our excellent Superintendent Robert Scotland resigned recently? Hmmmmmmmm!
Probably better paid and less stress. But then Robert is a forward thinking man, get experience in the private sector at high management level and then apply for the top or deputies job in due course
Probably got tired of the B.S. and didn’t want his reputation to be negatively impacted. From what I hear the position Baines left the RCIPS in they won’t be able to do very much in the next 2yrs to fill the vacancies they currently have.
expert expats..
Does anyone remember mr. Brian Gibbs? Last time it was a bank let’s see how this one plays out!!!
Hang, give me a minute. Er, no.
Ezzard on Sterling Dwayne’s show today said all the hotels on Seven Mile beach should have Caymanians as General Managers “like in the old days” (please name them Ezzie ?Bruce Copeland (Scotland)-Royal Palms, Dave Mitchell (Canada)-Galleon?)). His kind of mentality-shared by many- is making it impossible for anyone like these guys from overseas to have any real impact for the better in Cayman. They are “stuffed” because, er, geniuses like Ezzard and Arden have already pronounced they cannot do the job better than Caymanians who mysteriously cannot get themselves appointed.
Everyone knows that if Ezzard and Alden were in charge they would run this country into the ground. They have a collective IQ of 60. They say they are pro-Caymanian but in reality their distorted politics could ruin this country.
I wish it was as simple as a low IQ, 8:02 but it isn’t. Both these bombasts are in fact quite intelligent and sometimes-sometimes- get things right. But your main point is absolutely correct: if they were in charge, they would run Cayman into the ground. Dog would eat not only your supper but your lunch and breakfast too. And probably your morning patty, for good measure.
I would welcome a Donald Trump any day.
Baines got his friends in before leaving huh? Figures.
That’s right because Bains knows every single person in the police force in UK. Do you know there are over 60 million people living in the uk? Bains is from Lancashire and they are from the south which is about a 5 hour journey from where he used to wrk, so I doubt very much they are his friends. I know its easy to get your mates jobs here, but its not quite so easy in other countries. Get real!
Really? So since Ennis is Deputy did he recruit all the Jamaicans in RCIPS because they’re same nationality?
I’m so so so tired of Caymanians’ loyalty to Jamaicans over their own, if we hadn’t hired from UK then we know there were no Caymanians PLEASE GET OVER HIRING BRITISH OFFICERS!!!!!!!
Sometimes I wish UK would really show who’s in charge and send all British officers. This is not Jamaica they got rid of British so why come here to a British Territory and expect to be treated so special? If you can’t support recruitment of Caymanians and British, go back home!! Simple!
Time for Caymanians to see what’s in front of them, stand outside GAB and any school or Police station… hello folks we are official employer of Jamaicans AND also major remittances to that island. Stop encouraging their hatred of British while they take opportunities from all of us and our children, THE NUMBERS SHOW WHO IS BEING RECRUITED and even when if from UK most have Jamaican parents!
Like it or not,,,, these islands are just as much a source of employment for British as Jamaicans who by the way did not settle or build this country. Otherwise, like it or not many British descendents can also feel as entitled as Jamaicans from African and or european or Middle Eastern descent.
Wake up, and be fair! work on getting our people trained and stop repeating the anti-British hatred by so many of our Jamaican and West Indian friends and family who are not worried about native Caymanians losing to British officers.. THE ONLY PEOPLE UPSET BY BRITISH OFFICERS WILL BE THE JAMAICANS/WEST INDIANS WHO DIDN’T GET THOSE JOBS
and mark my words, before end of year, our poor government will have to hire at least 6-12 Jamaicans because of these 2 British officers who will leave quicker after end of contract.
A lot of Brits have already left or are in the process. It appears that the UK is a better alternative to here right now.
Another pair of soon to be retirees picking up another pension on the way into the sunset. I don’ t doubt the credentials but it is impossible to conclude that the governor and the FCO have a clue about establishing anything resembling a permanent force. This is just more random people being thrown into the revolving door. Having said that, the guy on the left at least looks like he might kick some ass. First order of business–hire some troops who can read and write (ie not from the excolonies)
Everything about hiring in this country is full of double-speak and hypocrisy. If someone younger is hired and they’re not Caymanian then you would doubt their credentials (of course if they’re Caymanian the credentials are secondary). If a non-Caymanian is hired who has undeniable credentials and is older, and you say that they’re here to pick up a pension (which by the way is insolvent if you’ve read the news lately). How refreshing it would be for people to just keep an open mind and see what an individual can do, rather than generalizing based on assumptions from a distance. They sound like decent, well-qualified people with their hearts in the right place. Let’s shut up and give them a chance.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of….
CIG.
5:31 The only problem with your comment is that, based on this report, Graham isn’t a retiree – in fact he’s still eight years off collecting his pension. So is he a permanent appointment to RCIPS or here on secondment from Kent Constabulary?
Didn’t say they were retirees yet. Didn’t question their motives. They do appear to be part of the same old process that that has not been working. Until the gov and the FCO insist on hiring street cops that can read and write, and retain more locals on the way up, it doesn’t matter how fine the Brits at the top are.
Has anyone told him that the pension runs out in 2024 and by that time, he will have to leave it here anyway, even if it did exist?
Such hypocrites…. same Jamaicans/Caymanians complaining about British officers adding to their pension rushing off to UK to get benefits of a system that these officers have and will continue to be taxed for!
I mean really if Jamaicans so tired of British and Filipinos go back to Jamaica instead of always planting the seeds of hate, and take the officers in RCIPS that Baines never fired!
Good to see important roles being taken from the UK. Should make selecting the top job easier next time. Good luck chaps.
Outstanding appointments again in CIG. I am so impressed. Criminals be careful these cops will get you.
Lmao please……..stop