A diplomatic row has broken out over the UK’s alleged delay in helping an overseas territory combat a spate of murders and untrammelled drugs trading.
The de-facto head of state for the Turks and Caicos Islands is said to have questioned whether the UK was failing in its obligation to keep residents safe.
Diplomatic sources told the Guardian that the governor, Nigel Dakin, a national security expert who was previously posted to Washington and Kabul, had said the initial support offered by the UK was inadequate.
Complaints were made that police officers sent from Britain to help were ordered to stay in their hotel rooms by the Home Office, with several reconnaissance and fact-finding missions further delaying active help.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Office bowed to pressure and announced a royal fleet auxiliary ship would be dispatched to the islands, along with specialist police from neighbouring Caribbean nations.
While Turks and Caicos is self-governing, it is a British Overseas Territory and the UK is responsible for the safety of people there.
However, the situation on the islands has rapidly deteriorated, with 11 fatal shootings in September and a further four in October – a high number for a territory with a population of less than 50,000.
The islands’ police force have come under attack from gangs, and in one particularly savage killing, about a dozen men were said to have roamed through the streets hunting down their target.
Given the struggle to clamp down on drugs smuggling into the territory, sources said Dakin said other countries, including the US and the Bahamas, had had to step in.
According to local media, Dakin told residents last week he had asked the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence for significant armed police and military support – and staked his job on a dramatic improvement in the help offered by the UK government.
Though the Foreign Office’s intervention on Tuesday means more help is on the way, Darkin is believed to have issued an ultimatum that forced the UK to act swiftly.
Insiders said he had accused ministers in Britain of potentially breaching their responsibility to protect citizens on the islands, and suggested the same process triggered when overseas territories fail to uphold their constitutional responsibilities should be used when the UK government does too.
The process is known as a “commission of inquiry”, and it involves the set up of a root-and-branch review to investigate a major issue and suggest measures to fix it.
Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister who ordered a commission of inquiry on Turks and Caicos Islands in 2009 due to concerns about corruption, said Liz Truss, who was foreign secretary until five weeks ago, was in part to blame.
“Yet again Liz Truss has been found wanting,” Bryant said. “There have been warnings galore, but she as foreign secretary did nothing.
“This is the most extraordinary accusation of a dereliction of duty by a Foreign Office appointee against a foreign secretary I have heard of.”
The British police initially sent over are understood to have been on a routine visit for training and to assess the local police force. They were told to stay in their hotels when the violence escalated and later returned home.
Since the arrival of 24 armed police from the Bahamas last Friday, the violence is said to have diminished significantly.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly said the UK has “a moral and constitutional responsibility to support and protect the people of the Overseas Territories, who are a valued part of the UK family” and the government had acted following the “terrible violence”.
He added: “I’m grateful to the brave men and women of the local police force, as well as those from the Bahamas who are providing invaluable immediate support. The Governor and Premier are also working tirelessly to protect communities. Together, we will ensure that violent crime is stamped out in the TCI in the long term.”
