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Sugar Hill Residents Asked to Submit to Fingerprinting

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Sugar Hill Resort
Sugar Hill Resort

There is a situation which has developed at the plush Sugar Hill West Coast residential location. In light of the recent admission by the Barbados Police Force that the stealing of jewellery has gotten out of control this is an interesting move by the Police. Is it one of desperation perhaps? How does the BU family feel about the dilemma which Sugar Hill residents find themselves?

Dear Barbados Underground:

The police are requesting that all staff and contractors at Sugar Hill voluntarily submit for fingerprinting in relation to some breakins at the resort. Is this legal? Will they also be fingerprinting guests who stayed at the resort? What about friends of owners? People eating at the public restaurant during that time? What will happen to the fingerprints? This seems wrong and a bit racist. While it appears voluntary, there seems that there might be consequences if you refuse.

Concerned Resident of Sugar Hill

Letter sent by the Royal Barbados Police Force to the Operations Manager of Sugar Hill Adrian Gale.

The following is an email which was sent to the residents by the Sugar Hill’s Operations Manager in response to the letter from the Police.

Subject: FW: RBPF Finger Printing Staff at Sugar Hill

Dear All,

As you are aware our file was passed to the Major Crimes Department in the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF). They have requested that all Staff with access to the Estate be finger printed as they are in possession of some forensic evidence, finger prints, from properties that suffered burglaries. See attached their letter of request.

The program will be on Tuesday the 12th March through to Thursday the 14th of March in the Members Lounge from 9am to 11am.

Therefore I ask You and or Your Villa Managers to comply with their request and advise all the staff and regular contractors accordingly.

In order to control this process the Sugar Hill Reception will be taking the names and dates preferred for staff to be finger printed. Also be aware that the RBPF have the names of the staff working on the Estate and may be questioning why someone does not turn up to be finger printed.

Ps I will be the first in line.

Regards

Adrian Gale

Operations Manager

Sugar Hill Resort

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93 responses to “Sugar Hill Residents Asked to Submit to Fingerprinting”

  1. Offended Avatar
    Offended

    This seems to me to be both illegal and discriminatory, even racist and should be resisted

  2. David Avatar
    David

    How is it racist? Don’t Black people live there too?

  3. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Hope they also fingerprint the guests who in the past have proven to be light fingered and vicious con artists. Problem is, in Bim they are never targeted but let’s see how that plays out.

  4. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    @David.

    I have read the Sugar Hill thing. My take on it is that of course staff may refuse to be finger-printed. However, to refuse does NATURALLY raise the suspicion level against those who refuse. If anyone refuses, the RBPF can certainly go and obtain (very easily) a court order requiring compliance, then they have got to give their finger prints – end of subject. To refuse would be a contempt to the court, which would entail arrest and mandatory finger printing in any case. End of story.

    The suggestion that asking for finger prints in such a situation is in some way racist, is in and of itself an inverted racist comment. The Police are merely going through a process of eliminating possible and obvious suspects. And the employees have to be realistic enough to accept that they are obvious suspects. The object of the exercise is to rule out the staff, not criminalize them, and they ought to agree to having their finger prints taken. Largely, I see this as a non-issue – EXCEPT!!!!

    Just one thing I would suggest. That the staff (or a group of the staff willing to be finger printed) (and they really ought to agree to it) should IMMEDIATELY telephone Andrew Pilgrim and ask him to represent them as a group. They can telephone individually letting him know that they agree to be finger printed and want him to look after their legal protection along with others similarly disposed. In this way, the RBPF must share their evidence with Andrew prior to the finger printing (and I urge this in light of the total lack of any discernible “police” investigation in the Crawford rape case and the clear manufacturing and ignoring of indisputable evidence and the clear evidence of coerced confessions. The bona fides of the RBPF are very far from being established. Especially in cases where these is the potential for international publicity, which you can, of course, if there is international publicity, expect those two prize clowns, Dottin (the CoP) and Leacock (the DPP) to exacerbate into a major news scandal.

    Andrew would also, I expect, demand the right to be present at the actual process of taking the finger prints and woe betide the police officer who is less than polite and courteous. I am surprised that Adrian Gale, whose brother is Barry Gale QC (QC deserved by the way) has not done something in this direction.

    But it really doesn’t matter. A court order for the police to obtain the finger prints will be forthcoming one way or another. Yes, it can be delayed and strung out. But frankly, if you are innocent, why bother to delay it. Just get yourself cleared BUT under the supervision of your own (or group) counsel. And frankly, for this sort of thing, Andrew is the best.

    What happens to the fingerprints? They go into the police records. I have no idea if they have a system like Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) maintained by the FBI in the States and mirrored by AFIS systems in Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, Argentina, Turkey, Morocco, Italy, Chile, Venezuela, Australia, Denmark, the International Criminal Police Organization etc. If they do not, they should. And these fingerprints will go on to this system. It does not in any way impute criminality. HOWEVER!!!!!

    HOWEVER, what it DOES do is to once again underline BU’s crusade, largely ignored by successive governments, for a FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND PROTECTION OF PRIVACY ACT such as exists in most civilized and democratic countries. It would very little effort for anyone with any sort of brain and legal training in the Solicitor General’s office (an office in which brain and acceptable legal training appear to be in very short supply) to adapt the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER F.31 (http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90f31_e.htm) for the purposes of Barbados.

    However, absent this legislation, it would be prudent for those who know they are innocent and want this sword of Damocles to be removed from over their heads, to ask Andrew to look after their interests, while cooperating with the Police.

    That is my take. And I would do nothing without the presence of counsel. Which is a right, not a request to the RBPF.

  5. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    So are they all suspects? It is not legal, although this will not stop Barbadian police from carrying it out. If they police suspect individuals they can arrest them.
    Where are our public interest lawyers? Go for a judicial review of the request?

  6. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    The leaders in Bim are well aware that if they ask US or Canada for help with drafting FOI legislation, these two countries will be more than glad to help. I maintain that all parties including guests, should be fingerprinted in the process of elimination.

  7. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    I agree in principle that the police/security services should have DNA/fingerprints of every citizen, but to pick on staff, for no real forensic reason seems a bit much. Who are the people buying this jewellery? How about jewellers and people who stockpile gold as a way of preserving wealth?

  8. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    On a side note…………Harlequin=clown=harlequinaphobia=you’ve been had………..time to fingerprint everyone for reference in international databases.

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @Amused

    It is sad when you would recommend that citizens contract a lawyer BECAUSE of a lack of confidence in the police force.

  10. Rosemary Parkinson Avatar
    Rosemary Parkinson

    Whilst sad, I do believe Amused has a good point.

    Yikes! I am going to sugar Hill this evening for an art exhibition…must I take my lawyer with me?

  11. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    You may be nicked for loitering or acting suspiciously..

  12. Ian Bourne (@bajanreporter) Avatar
    Ian Bourne (@bajanreporter)

    I just passed Sugar Hill (SH) last night to go to Westmoreland, if I am going in that area again? Let it be on record I totally REFUSE to be fingerprinted, unless you have a warrant or recorded due cause to suspect me, otherwise Mgmt or whosoever can do what Duguid told Donville to haul… This is Inquisitional Tactics from SH and I will not take any SH I.T.

  13. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    The idea is wrong in principle, but if it came from management there ought to be a public out cry. If it came from the police they need to go back to training school.

  14. DR. THE HONOURABLE Avatar
    DR. THE HONOURABLE

    Barbados is slipping badly
    Too much time wasting in schools
    Teachers , especially the females , who are not suited as a species to be guiding anybody in how to live in the world, are not teaching the nation’s children. Most of the female teachers in Barbados are in it for the m-o-n-e-y.
    Bombard Cave Hill, -70% female students – Get a degree, come out with a snotty attitude, not wiling to do a proper job, just looking for m-o-n-e-y —AND there is your problem right there,

    Come on men, and this includes white men–Lets Take Back Barbados

  15. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    @Hal. You are talking dog. Get real. This has nothing to do with colour or race or gender or age or anything like that. The Police have the right to exclude suspects and in a hotel or resort situation, the first people they would want to exclude are the staff and that staff, common sense (which you appear to have woken up minus this morning) dictates that it is the staff that is first in line as suspects. In any other country, this would be a non-issue. It is NOT a big deal. And it is high time that Bajans came to accept this, if for nothing else, the good of our tourist industry. This culture of thought that no one booking a holiday is going to put up with any longer, has to cease.

    My sole concern is that the Police themslves have proved to be the “manufacturers” of evidence – and this time there are not two rape victims to deal with who can impugn the police identification. Therefore, until such time as stringent measures are taken by government to dismiss the COP and the DPP and clean up both their departments, you need a lawyer, so get Andrew.

    @David. Yes, it is very sad indeed that you need a lawyer in these circumstances, BUT until the PM and the AG develop the balls to go to the GG and have Royal Commissions set up for the dismissal of the COP and the DPP (and while they are at it, the CJ and 99% of the Bench and the Registrar) then the Sugar Hill employees should protect themslves by first getting a lawyer and then agreeing to provide their fingerprints. And don’t listen to Hal. These things can be obtained, not least by a court order.

    Personally, if it were me, I would take the same position as Adrian Gale and give my finger prints so that I was no longer under suspicion. But Adrian has a very high powered legal brother. If they try any nonsense with him, they will regret it to the end of their days and beyond. Others don’t have that advantage and so need to, as a group, get counsel first and then agree to be finger printed.

    Anyway, that is my best advice, so to the staff at Sugar Hill, take it or not as you see fit. Over and out.

  16. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    lots of jobs need a security check and fingerprinting to work there, this is not unusual. It is your right not to have it done but it is also the right of people doing the employing to hire people they feel safer with.A new policy may have to be started for future hires.Which would give the same result without offending anyone,

  17. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ Lawson
    Bang!
    You got that nail on the head.

    Competent management would have already collected such information from staff working in sensitive areas with international visitors who are wont to have valuables, be careless with them, and in come cases, be worthless scamps themselves.
    Such action would have even PREEMPTED many cases of theft in the first place…..

    Incompetent jokers find themselves scrambling AFTER the fact trying to collect such data…..such is the state of our leaders and managers.

    It is obvious that the DPP, Police and Army chiefs around here are untouchable. There is no way that such “donkey holes” could continue in those positions after such demonstrated and COSTLY exhibitions of incompetence.

    When MIA and company purchased that expensive espionage equipment for the Cricket World Cup fiasco and gave it to the security forces, little did they know the kind of info that it would be used to collect…..

    Now the clowns are running the circus.

  18. ac Avatar
    ac

    So who is paying for this finger printing protection .i meaning i hpe the owners would be footing the bill and not depending on taxpayers money afterall a program such as this cost money………….also the suggestion by amused in referencing to the staff having a lawyer as representation could be problematic to those whiose finances could less afford a lawyer.I say let SH invest in high tech security instead of shaming their staff into involuntary fingerprinting and adding more financial cost to govt.

  19. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @Amused
    If anyone refuses, the RBPF can certainly go and obtain (very easily) a court order requiring compliance, then they have got to give their finger prints – end of subject.
    **************
    The whole gist of your submission strikes as Orwellian, a uniform body unable to come up with a list of suspects and refusal to submit for fingerprinting is treated as evidence of guilt. What happens to your fingerprints after you’ve submitted them and are cleared? Do they go into a database for future reference?

  20. Mauby_2 Avatar
    Mauby_2

    Give the Police some credit. They are only asking for fingerprints.
    In the past their policy was “licks like peas”. If you did’nt do it, you certainly knew someone who did.

  21. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @ David

    So what’s all the uproar about. I have been made to understand that all staff in the tourism industry have to be fingerprinted as a matter course when they are employed. Same as those who are engaged in day nurseries and and other areas of sensitive employment.

    So, big deal, as “Amused” suggested get counsel (perhaps the company would pay the retainer fee?) and clear themselves of any suspicion. And, yes, Ian Bourne would also have to be fingerprinted if he even passes close to the entrance of such residential areas.

  22. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    I can’t understand why some people are so steadfast in their belief that they are above it all and should be exempt, even when they are proven to be just as criminal minded……………I am just generalizing. As we all know that is par for the course in Bim.

  23. David (not BU) Avatar
    David (not BU)

    my question is, when the police take these fingerprints what do they do with them? are they going to put them in a national database once they are finish? this is very fishy to me.

  24. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    @ David

    I understand that in Barbados the fingerprint records are destroyed after a six-month period. Not too sure about that though as Barbados is a signatory to the INTERPOL organisation. So just maybe the records would/could be added to an international database. Any possibilities of us harbouring a “bajan terrorist” by any chance? :). Time to check IB the reporter?

  25. de hood Avatar
    de hood

    Or ac, perhaps?

  26. David (not BU) Avatar
    David (not BU)

    having said that, some of us choose to go to the USA and get finger print. so i really don’t know.

  27. David Avatar
    David

    @de hood

    The issue here is that the employees at Sugar Hill have probably not signed a terms and condition of employment which includes fingerprinting. Amused has offered them an option which they may refuse and deal with the fallout.

  28. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    @ David
    Why are you so surprised that we live in a police state. You must know that Big Brother is your constant companion.That has been an existential reality for decades. Nobody in Barbados can make a telephone call unless it is monitored, recorded and entered into data base. And this has always been so. With cell phones the situation is even more pervasive. Every key you touch on a computer could be known. Every website you go to is registered. You don’t see how Google knows where you like to go. The US government has enough terabytes in vast farms to store all electronic communication till their god comes. David, even private companies can access live satellite data of individuals as they walk around the place.

    The police force in Barbados is no stranger to the security state. For years they have been beating confessions out of poor people. It was Cheltenham who remarked that 90% of cases are based on confession, in Barbados. The police question suspects all the time without telling them about their rights etc. They conduct warrantless searches and seizures. If you have money in Barbados you are unlikely to have trouble with the beasts. The police are well trained to give certain people trouble as they seek to protect the elites. And Babylon kills people all the time, very few go to trial. Less end up in convictions. David you like to think you live in some sort of democracy when the truth is that we live under is oligarchy. With this structure of government there a coalescence of the economic and political elites. The police merely serve as the enforcement arm of this wicked system. They are to protect these elites. You don’t see every election we hear how the political elites steal money and not one goes to jail. Do you think this is an accident? This is the dominant international governing system also. But the sleepy people of the world are waking up. They are not likely to put up with this state of affairs forever.

  29. Pinkie Avatar
    Pinkie

    if the guests’ jewelery has been insured then also finger print them. the police in that are knows full well that a number of tourist claim to have been robbed of sums of money, jewelery etc, etc but what is an open secret is that the tourists just want that police report to take back home, so they would eventually be refunded the financial value of the items that were supposedly stolen. easy way to get money that they never had

  30. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    Folks get real, to obtain a job as a maid, butler or gardener at places like Sugar Hill, all applicants are required to produce a police certificate of character. A police certificate of character is issued by the police where finger prints are taken and then checked. I don’t know how accurate the police are BUT that is how it should be done. Today we have technology that would find matches in seconds that is if there is a national database. Let us hope that the police have gone to digital finger printing and hope that they are not still using the ink method.

  31. David Avatar
    David

    @Pacha

    BU wants very urgently to know how the CWC2007 security surveillance equipment is being used by the police.

  32. Bdos Underground Talkshop Avatar
    Bdos Underground Talkshop

    Let’s hope that the staff seek legal advice as recommended by Amused.

  33. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    @ David

    There was mention of its misuse some time ago, no? I seem to remember some politician’s conversation was captured. This is the norm. Do you know that police departments are using drones and infrared technologies to even see you from behind walls, in your house. Even the labels in your clothing may have something called RFID, presumably for manufacturers to tract goods but once the tech is out there it can be used for any purpose. We even have companies who believe they have a right to put a microchips in the bodies of employees. This is 1984 as heading for dystopia. The money people know it and are even preparing for civil within the USA.

  34. ac Avatar
    ac

    The only interest here is the SH . Firstly the staff have already had to produce by way of letter a police letter stating that this person has no crimal record in orderto be employed i am sure that SH does there own employee background check. now why should an employee have to bear the additional cost of hiring a lawyer to ensure rights are not violated by police or faced the possibly ofbeing hauled to courts for involutary violation of not adhering to the wishes of SH or maybe even fired afterwa.rds.

  35. David Avatar
    David

    The issue here is that the SH employees do not have to agree to being fingerprinted however there must be aware of the downside to doing so in the real world.

  36. Gingerbread Girl Avatar
    Gingerbread Girl

    The Poe-lice will also need to be fingerprinted, them does do a lot of tiefing in Barbados.

  37. tedd Avatar
    tedd

    the truth i that the police will use someones refusal to volentare being fingerprinted as reasonable grounds to suspect, detain for questionioning( assisting the police) and then get the prints by force (compulsory).

    i however do not think this is racism as there must be black and asian residents and guests and white and asian staff and subcontractors. However it may be a case of class discrimination( socio-economic).

    Either way it smells of facisim and opression

  38. tedd Avatar
    tedd

    where are the defenders of civil liberties? i know this is not a big thing in hte caribbean but still.

  39. bk Avatar
    bk

    Seems to me that all they had to do, was require everyone who is employed there, persons on contractual agreements (pool, pond maintenance, etc) to get a police certificate of character. As far as i know, in order to get said certificate, one is fingerprinted.

  40. Sheila Avatar
    Sheila

    This is backward all the way. Its guilty until proven innocent and illegal as hell. There is no way that the police can force anybody to submit to finger printing unless they have specific evidence against them enough to charge them with a crime and book them. If it were me, I would say ‘hell no’. Once people start going like sheep to do stuff like this, the police and government will soon think they have a right to do this. They never even asked that people volunteer, seems like they trying to command anyone who works there. The emphasis is on ‘work’ becaue they seem to be threatening job security. I’d like to be the first to represent workers in a lawsuit for anyone fired because they did not comply with this crap. Well, Mr. Police Commissioner, if this is the way you conduct business, instead of solid detective work, you ought to be out of a job.

  41. eyez Avatar
    eyez

    nawadays u cant tell a policeman he head big because it would be seen as a charge, and in court de ppl in charge is tell you things like u cud live in a tree if they had they way wid u etc.if them doing de finger printing then honestly everyone should go along even the guest cause whos to say them hands aint light to get ya lawyer of course andrew

  42. Zeus Avatar
    Zeus

    Did it ever occur to some of some of u very intelligent people that probably graduated from some top universities around the world that think policing is a lowly job and that you can get it done that during the investigations of the police they found a fingerprint and that they investigations have led to someone who works there and by process of elimination want to fingerprint everyone who had access to the area in question

  43. Jock Baumann Avatar
    Jock Baumann

    This is so obviously not right.

    Any civil liberties lawyer in the US, UK, Canada and so on could build an entire career on this case alone. I can barely imagine the uproar that would erupt if there was a series of thefts in an apartment building in New York or London or Toronto, and the reaction of the building’s management was to get the police to record the fingerprints of everybody who ever had a reason to visit the building.

    Taking your fingerprints is like taking a DNA sample. It’s a unique marker. What will they do with the fingerprint records later?

    Unless I’m arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, I would no more let someone take my fingerprints or do a DNA swab than I’d let them implant a biochip in my neck.

    Kudos to whoever raised this issue. It needed being brought to public attention. Never thought I’d say this, but Kudos to BU, too, for making this known to a wider public.

  44. Jock Baumann Avatar
    Jock Baumann

    ac, March 7, 2013 at 1:40 PM:

    “now why should an employee have to bear the additional cost of hiring a lawyer to ensure rights are not violated by police?”

    Exactly. Excellent question.

  45. adonijah Avatar
    adonijah

    This stinks of fascism. Are the guests who report these robberies fingerprinted? As one person submitted, it has been proven that this is often a scam to claim big insurance money “back home”. It is extremely offensive and, if we had unions worth their salt, no owner/manager would even think of instituting such a measure.

  46. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    @ Hal Austin.
    Where are our public interest lawyers? Go for a judicial review of the request?
    —————————————————————
    Serving in parliament

  47. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Here we go again… get out the lawyers palm up…Sounds like the Jamaican womans case when they searched her twice, I am a little confused if it was the same cavity twice or two cavitys once.Everybody has to decide what kind of world you want. Give up a few rights for the good of the island as a whole.Remember the cops are trying to catch a criminal.Or quit whining when someone is stealing your gold, killing your tourist industry, or the police never do anything

  48. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Adonijah wrote, “As one person submitted, it has been proven that this is often a scam to claim big insurance money “back home”.

    I would bet that criminals from the UK and north America go on “working” vacations.

    No right thinking person should submit to fingerprinting for the purpose of excluding them as a suspect.

    This action at Sugar Hill is even more nefarious because in these tough times workers may be willing to compromise their integrity to save their jobs.

  49. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ adonijah | March 7, 2013 at 5:37 PM |
    “As one person submitted, it has been proven that this is often a scam to claim big insurance money “back home”…”

    There is much evidence to support such a contention. For years now this type of scam by some British travelers, especially among the “better off”, has been in operation. There have even been a few Media exposures including a Panorama programme and Channel 4 reports on this kind of insurance scam involving “alleged” stolen jewellery and other expensive personal effects while holidaying overseas; more so in so-called Third World destinations with incompetent and corrupt local police forces.

    Barbados now happens to be an easy target given the recent internationally publicised upsurge in crime against visitors and the beating to its image the country is currently receiving in the UK media.

  50. brown suga Avatar
    brown suga

    this sounds like a case of divide and conquer if only bajans would stick togather mentally in whatever they do it goes way back not only bajans ppl of our kind in general i know some ppl gona talk an say its not about colour but it is

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