Former officer investigating misconduct claims dropped from complaints authority
The former policeman tasked with investigating misconduct claims against Stephen Corbishley has been dropped from the Police Complaints Authority.
Andrew Bermingham, who carried out the Governor-ordered inquiry into the former Commissioner of Police before the latter suddenly quit in October 2021, served on the PCA for more than a decade.
But a recent government notice reveals he has been replaced on the independent watchdog, as has retired lawyer Will Francis.
Rena Lalgie, the Governor, appoints the members of the PCA after consultation with the Minister of National Security.
Michael Weeks, the Minister of National Security, told The Royal Gazette on Monday that he had no involvement in the decision to remove Mr Bermingham.
The minister said it was the Governor who made appointments to the board, albeit with advice from him, although in this instance he did not recommend that Mr Bermingham be removed.
A Government House spokesman said: "Mr Bermingham was appointed to the Police Complaints Authority in 2009 and served on the PCA for thirteen years.
“Appointments to the Police Complaints Authority, and other advisory boards and committees — including the Defence Board and the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy — are reviewed on a regular basis and expressions of interest are actively sought.”
The Police Complaints Authority Act states that the chairman and members of the authority shall hold office for "such term not exceeding five years as may be specified in their respective instruments of appointment" and that members are "eligible for reappointment".
Initial appointments to the PCA are usually for three years, with reappointments for between one and three years at a time.
According to the Official Gazette, Mr Bermingham was last reappointed to serve on the PCA for a year-long term by Ms Lalgie on May 1, 2021.
In March 2021, he was tasked by the Governor with investigating allegations made to Government House about Mr Corbishley by police constable Robert Butterfield.
The misconduct claims included that Mr Corbishley identified Mr Butterfield as a public access to information requester and that the former police commissioner passed information gathered during a criminal inquiry into Mr Butterfield to his personal lawyer to pursue a civil claim for damages against him.
It is understood that Mr Bermingham’s inquiry looked into the obtaining of a warrant by the Bermuda Police Service to search the homes of Mr Butterfield and another police officer, Mark Monk, in December 2020.
The Gazette also understands that Mr Bermingham’s report was passed to the Governor some months before Mr Corbishley resigned.
The Governor, who abandoned the gross misconduct inquiry after the former police commissioner quit, has refused to make Mr Bermingham’s report public.
The Information Commissioner backed the decision to keep it secret last week, on the basis that it was not a final report but merely an "update" containing unproven allegations.
A magistrate has ordered Tom Oppenheim, the Deputy Governor, to bring the report to a court hearing on Tuesday in relation to a criminal case against Mr Monk and his wife, Tricia Monk.
The Monks deny harassing Mr Corbishley and Superintendent Gillian Murray, the former head of the Bermuda Police Service’s professional standards department.
The new PCA members are former Supreme Court Registrar Charlene Scott and former police officer Charles Mooney. Their appointments by Ms Lalgie came into effect on April 19.
They join lawyer Jeffrey Elkinson, who has served as chairman since 2013, Winston Esdaille and Ernestine DeGraff.
Mr Bermingham and Mr Elkinson declined to comment for this article.
The Police Complaints Authority is required by law to give the Minister of National Security and the Governor an annual report on the "exercise of its functions“.
The minister must then table the report in Parliament but it is not clear when such a report was last made public.
The most recent report available on the PCA website is for the period January 1, 2012 to September 1, 2014.
The PCA, which receives $21,000 a year from the public purse to carry out its work, told The Royal Gazette in 2019, in response to a Pati request, that it received 26 complaints in 2017 and 41 complaints in 2018.
Chairman Jeffrey Elkinson said during those two years the authority focused on its inquiry into the parliamentary pepper spray protest of December 2016 and “did not launch any other investigations”.
Mr Elkinson declined to comment on the PCA’s annual reports yesterday.
The Office of the Ombudsman, which investigates grievances about public authorities, has received 17 complaints about the PCA since 2013, according to its annual reports.
