Dear Sir,
For the UK it is all about the money, the money,…not justice
More than five years after the suspension of the TCI constitution, it is now clear that the United Kingdom’s excursion into TCI’s internal affairs is more about finding lucrative employment for retired and semi-retired British civil servants, policemen, and lawyers, than cleaning up corruption. Readers might think that conclusion is cynical, and it may be, but all I ask is that you give me five minutes as the evidence could not be more compelling.
First, if the UK Government wanted to clean up corruption in the TCI, it could not have done a worse job. The best solution would have been to send a few Scotland Yard detectives to the TCI, posing as investors, to confirm that bribes were being solicited or, as the SIPT suggests, demanded by Ministers as the price to play. If that was done, and if there was rampant and systemic corruption as Auld has suggested, irrefutable evidence of the SIPT’s allegations could have been easily recorded, putting the FCO’s case beyond all doubt, and charges and trials could have been brought and completed within a year, avoiding the need for expensive and protracted investigations and prosecutions, by retired and semi-retired former British civil servants, all while living it up in five star beachfront resorts at the TCI taxpayer’s expense.
Second, what we got instead is a bizarre show in the form of a Commission of Inquiry (“COI”), held at a five star beachfront resort, and presided over by retired British judge Sir Robin Auld, along with a cast of other British characters. While that exercise was entertaining, it was very expensive entertainment, it shut the country down for months, with Government being distracted and dysfunctional for several months before the COI and for many months afterwards. Likewise with many member of the community. Even worse yet, it put Auld’s subjects on alert that they were the targets of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). If the FCO wanted to catch criminals, and tackle corruption, that was the worse way to do so, but don’t draw any conclusions yet.
Third, following Auld’s COI, UK law firm Edwards Wildman was engaged to recover assets, for which it has charged the TCI more than $13M, to collect just over $19.5M in cash. That firm now attends international conferences on corruption, bragging about the hundreds of acres it has recovered for the people of the TCI, describing its efforts as one of the most extensive asset recovery programs in the world. What it fails to mention is that despite ‘the extensive scope of its work’, it has left untouched the largest allegations of misappropriation of public assets in the history of the TCI, involving contracts in the hundreds of millions and land in the thousands of acres. You don’t need to be too imaginative to guess that the lucky recipient of that myopia just happens to be a powerful and politically connected British subject, with tentacles reaching to the highest levels of the UK’s conservative party.
Fourth, in addition to Edwards Wildman’s TCI gravy train, Helen Garlic, a semi retired former employee in the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), was also hired by the FCO in 2009. She had been ‘sacked’ by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2006, over an expensive two-year investigation, which the UK Government forced her to shut down. In August 2009, after languishing in private practice for three years, but more or less behaving, the FCO returned the favour, and asked Garlic to quote on heading up criminal investigations and possible prosecutions of Auld’s COI subjects, a financial opportunity she jumped on, quoting six million dollars for a two year contract. Once engaged, with no effective oversight, Garlic’s joyride has gone from madness to even greater madness, with her hiring dozens of retired, white, former officers of London’s MET, along with a half dozen or so white English lawyers. What started out as a two year engagement, with a trove of evidence handed to her SIPT by Auld, and given to him by the very persons Garlic was investigating, more than five years and fifty million dollars later, has turned into a fleecing of the TCI taxpayer.
Fifth, as for the FCO’s seriousness about fighting corruption, the SIPT has been consistently side tracked by matters outside their remit, including ponzi schemes and stamp duty prosecutions, all while on the public’s purse. Finally, and we suggest that it is now safe to draw conclusions, even when attending to its corruption investigations, shockingly, white anglo saxon developers Garlic says paid bribes have consistently been the recipients of backroom deals involving the sale of Get Out of Jail Cards. In all but one case the expats Garlic says paid bribes have gotten off entirely free, with at least three well known cases of persons she says paid bribes now actively involved in promoting local businesses, with several key persons sitting at the very top of the local tourism industry.
After more than five years, with trials no where in sight, Garlic’s shambolic investigations have turned out to be more of a racket than part of a criminal justice system. Unlike The Auld Show, the SIPT’s investigations are not just painful to watch, they are offensive to the TCI’s sense of right and wrong, and Garlic’s SIPT has brought the entire TCI judicial system into disrepute. Large swathes of the public now believe that even the judiciary is a joke, at best blindly overseeing a rigged criminal justice system, and at worst being the handmaiden of a prosecutor who has written and is implementing the selective enforcement of this country’s criminal laws. In 2009 Garlic SIPT was welcomed to these Islands by a large segment of the community like a rock star, more than five years later she is the target of picketers, with even her defendants’ most ardent enemies distancing themselves from what has been a disgraceful abuse of investigative authority and a shameful lining of her pockets at the taxpayer’s expense.
This might have all been dismissed as gross incompetence and sloppiness if Garlic’s SIPT had indulged in a two year investigation, as originally contracted, but what we have here is a lavishly funded investigation that is more than half a decade in the works, that was given a head start, involving dozens of senior UK police officers, that have cost TCI taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. My view, to put it bluntly, is that this fleecing of the the TCI public, while turning a blind eye to the biggest incidences of corruption, is an egregious form corruption in itself. Yes, corruption. I also have a theory, which is that it is also a clever scheme pushed by Garlic’s SIPT to keep their gravy train rolling, permitted because of the UK’s stated policy of exporting its legal services, its long standing desire to reward washed up and/or retired British civil servants and technocrats, and its indifference to corruption that benefits anglo saxon Britons. If you think my views are far off the mark, just Google “UK Legal Services on the International Stage: Underpinning growth and stability”, or conveniently clink the link below. You only need to read the first page.
While more than two centuries have past since the U.K. abolished slavery, the people of the Caribbean are still treated as chattels for the financial benefit of the English, with hypocritical lip service to rule of law, justice, and other grand ideals, but can you say Ka-Ching? It is all about the money, the money, not justice.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/corporate-reports/MoJ/legal-services-action-plan-0313.pdf
John Thompson
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