It is astonishing that Franz Manderson, now Deputy Governor, should have written to the Office of the Complaints Commissioner (OCC) concerning an investigation Nicola Williams had executed, not only asking her to revisit her decision but in a previous email on 28th October 2011 insinuating that she didn’t know how to do her job. On the 23rd December he had written again saying “The deputy governor [referring to Mr. Ebanks at the time] … is very concerned about some aspects of your investigation and its findings.”

The investigation by the OCC was in regard to a strip search carried out at the Fairbanks women’s prison on 4th December last year. Two officers were disciplined earlier but Franz Manderson and acting Chief Officer, Eric Bush found the methods used by the prison officers unreasonable but not retaliatory.

The woman, central to the abuse, had written a letter of complaint about some of the prison officers the day before the incident. iNews Cayman had received an anonymous letter informing us of the matter.

The Complaints Commissioner, Nicola Williams, said on October 24th 2011 she disagreed with Mr. Manderson and Mr. Bush and believed government officials owed the inmates an apology. I commented, “the apology may be a long time coming.”

Of course, it didn’t come and worse, instead of letting the matter die down Mr. Manderson wrote a letter to Ms Williams on 23 December: “I would invite you to please revisit this matter and reconsider the decision which you arrived at back in October 2011, that the search was retaliatory.”

Conducting herself very professionally, Ms Williams on 16 November apologised to Mr. Manderson for not sending a Notice of Investigation letter informing Mr. Manderson formally that a complaint had been made against him and/or his government entity, in this case, the Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs. She was adamant, however, that her ruling and recommendations had not changed. On 25th January Ms Williams wrote to Mr. Manderson saying, “With respect, it is up to me as commissioner to decide how I conduct an investigation, as long as there is a legal basis for it, as is the case here,” she wrote.

“I do not accept that just because I have reached a different decision to those public officers that I have maligned them.”

Responding to Mr. Manderson’s request to revisit the case she agreed there was a legitimate reason to conduct the search at Fairbanks because cell phones are not permitted in either the male or female prison facilities. “However,” she said, ‘there was no legitimate reason in all the circumstances to resort to strip search rather than any other form of search,” remarking that officers only had reason to search one inmate, not all three.  “Although there is insufficient proof that the original motive for the search was retaliatory, there is, in my opinion, sufficient proof that there was an element of retaliation in the execution of the search.”

Even though one of the two cell phones the prison officers were searching for was in plain sight on one of the prisoner’s bed, when she refused to be strip searched, she was forcibly held down, cuffed, strip searched, bruised and had her clothing ripped. Only after all this did the female officers go to her bed to retrieve the phone. This was according to a sworn affidavit by the inmate. The search had been made only one day after other inmates had also written complaining letters concerning certain prison policies that also alleged laziness or inactivity on the part of some of the prison officers.

I leave it to our readers to see what conclusion they would have come to in the circumstances outlined above and whether the Deputy Governor should have complained about the OCC ruling into the original complaint. I certainly feel his comments concerning some aspects of the OCC’s findings and of Ms Williams investigations to have been ill judged. I said “astonishing” in my opening sentence, because in my past dealings with Mr. Manderson (although not many) have always been courteous and professional.