‘Snorkelling squad’ cost less than CI$3000

(CNS): The answer to a freedom of information request submitted by CNS has revealed that the recent short visit by senior police officers from Merseyside in the UK cost the public purse well under CI$3,000. The visit by the officers stirred up considerable controversy, especially in the UK, when British journalists pictured the senior cops lounging on the beach and on a day trip aboard the police commissioner’s boat. The three officers stayed in Cayman for four days and the RCIPS picked up the tab for their car, hotel and daily expenses but did not pay their flights or a fee for their time. (Photos by Splash News)

The FOI request reveals that the three men stayed at the Marriott Hotel, which cost a total of CI$1,386 for three rooms for four nights. The car hire cost for the officers was CI$249.26 and each of men also received $75 expenses per day, which came to a total of CI$1,125 for the duration of the visit. In total the cost of bringing out the three officers was $2760.26. 

The RCIPS said it had been willing to pay the cost of the three offiers' flights but the information manager said that Cayman had not received a bill from the UK for them.

They later sent 20 UK officers to assist the RCIPS in the five murder and one attempted murder investigations opened in September as a result of a spate of gang related killings, 

According to Police Commissioner David Baines, the short visit was designed to allow the Chief Constable of Merseyside Jon Murphy, Det Chief Supt Brian McNeill from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Det Chief Supt Tony Doherty, head of the Merseyside force’s Matrix gun and organised crime squad, to not only review where they would be sending their twenty UK officers but to advise the RCIPS how best they could be used. They also reviewed the investigations and offered some advice on gang crime, the commissioner said.

During the four-day visit journalists from the Daily Mail tailed the officers and took snaps of them enjoying down time, which appeared to conflict with the official timetable of the work the men were said to be doing.

The British tabloid reported that the photos showed the officer “sunbathing, snorkelling, sightseeing, reading novels and soaking up the sun in 84F heat”, which it said was unlikely to go down well with colleagues back in Liverpool as they worked in a chilly 55F. “Over two days, they were seen relaxing on the beach, enjoying a four-hour boat trip and swimming with giant stingrays on a beautiful coral reef,” the Daily Mail said of the senior officers during their Cayman trip.

The three UK top cops reportedly arrived on in the evening of Monday 3 October but were followed by the Daily Mail through Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 October. The paper reported that the officers were involved in meetings with the RCIPS from around 9pm until before 4pm on Wednesday, when the police were on the beach at their hotel but on Thursday the reporters watched the officers enjoy almost a full day of leisure activities.

Murphy accused the reporters of spying on him, while the commissioner said all three officers had on average worked 12 hours a day. "I think it's a travesty that it's being presented in the way that it is," Baines told the UK media in the wake of the Daily Mail report.

Since the visit, twenty officers from different police forces in the northwest of the UK have reportedly been partnering with local detectives working on the September shootings. So far, police have charged one man with the last of the murders which took place in East End. Chakame Jamelle Scott (18) was charged last month with the murder of 21-year-old Asher Williams McGaw.

Although officers also arrested two men on 2 November in a special operation in connection with the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Andrew Baptist in West Bay, no charges have been announced against these two suspects and police have not yet confirmed if the men have been released from custody.

The murder investigations are continuing into the five incidents and the UK officers are expected to remain in Cayman until the end of this month.

See related story