In a shock move, Deputy Commissioner of Police Anthony Ennis is weighing his resignation from the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS), and is already coming under pressure from officials asking him to reconsider.

At the same time, President of the University College of the Cayman Islands, Dr Hassan Syed, has quit his post, effective immediately, citing “personal health issues”.

Mr Syed’s sudden resignation was submitted on Monday, 12 May, to the university’s 11-member Board of Governors, which said only that Chairman Conor O’Dea “expressed his concern for Dr Syed and thanked him for his service to the university and to the Cayman Islands”.

The move by Deputy Commissioner Ennis comes in the wake of the late-March suspension by H.E the Governor Stuart Jack of Police Commissioner Stuart Kernohan, Deputy Commissioner Rudolph Dixon and Detective Chief Superintendent John Jones as part of a comprehensive corruption probe by a nine-member team from London’s Metropolitan Police.

At the time of the suspensions, Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Bridger said a six-month investigation had exonerated both Mr Ennis and Cayman Net News publisher Desmond Seales of allegations of a corrupt relationship, which had led to the wider scrutiny of the RCIPS.

While Mr Ennis did not deny he was considering his resignation, he declined to elaborate.

“I am not confirming that I’ve made a decision to resign,” he said. “This is a private decision made within the police force.

“I would not go so far as to say that I would not want the public to know; I am a public servant, after all, but I am not confirming that I have made the decision.”

In a 15 April statement upon his return from vacation leave, however, Mr Ennis expressed dismay at the allegations and the scrutiny he had endured.

“Since I first became aware of these events, the subsequent period has been extremely difficult and painful for my family and me,” the Deputy Commissioner wrote, saying he remained “deeply troubled by the egregious and reprehensible acts against me”. Only the “exigent circumstances confronting the RCIPS and the country,” he said, had compelled him to return to work.

The Deputy Commissioner is widely respected as among the most reliable RCIPS commanders. His departure would be a severe blow at a time of shaky public faith in the force. Insiders suggest, however, that Mr Ennis may fear he has been tarnished by recent events, much as Mr Bridger has acknowledged the damage already done to the three suspended officers, regardless of guilt or innocence.

The Office of the Governor, who is responsible for the police, said that as of Tuesday, 13 May, it had not received Mr Ennis’s resignation “as far as I’m aware,” said a spokesman.

Sources close to the situation said the Deputy Commissioner had not yet tendered the document, but was still “considering his options”, and acknowledged that a small group of officers had already asked Mr Ennis to rethink his departure.

Colleagues of UCCI President Dr Syed, meanwhile, were reluctant to elaborate on the 41-year-old’s sudden resignation, expressing fears for his health, indicating only that he was in a Toronto-area hospital, undergoing a series of delicate surgical procedures.

No indications were available of when Dr Syed would return, who might replace him or if an interim head would act in his place.

Dr Syed, formerly head of the Computer Science Department at UCCI, assumed the top spot in summer 2006 after the departure of previous president Sam Basdeo.

In his role as president, the high-energy Briton revitalised the school, increasing its budget, course offerings, degree programmes and student enrollment.

His influence was critical in expanding UCCI’s physical plant, adding a Cayman Brac campus and a Civil Service College, while expanding graduate, bachelors, professional and vocational programmes, forming professional and mentoring partnerships with private industry, recasting the university as part of a primary-secondary-tertiary educational continuum and forging a strong relationship with the Ministry of Education under Hon Alden McLaughlin.

“Many view higher education as clinging to the past, unwilling to change and improve. We must regain the public trust if we are to realise our aspirations and serve the future,” Dr Syed wrote in his recent “President’s Progress Report”.

“This requires that we change substantively, becoming organisationally still more lean and effective. At UCCI, we have started to re-engineer many of our administrative and service activities to become more cost effective, productive and efficient. We have to continue to invest in the higher education sector by allowing equal access to all citizens of this country.”

Mr McLaughlin thanked Dr Syed for his efforts and expressed confidence in the Board of Governors.

“We are grateful to Dr Syed for his many valuable contributions to the University College of the Cayman Islands during his tenure as its president,” he said. “I am confident that the Board of UCCI will be able to build on his achievements as it looks to the next stage of the college’s development within the context of the country’s education transformation agenda. We wish Dr Syed good health and our very best wishes.”

tad@caymannetnews.com