Mr Christopher told members of the media on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 that the timeframe represented the vacation time his superior, Superintendent Verne A. G. Garde of St Lucia, took.

Mr Garde proceeded on vacation from March 19 to July 12, 2020 and had to under the mandatory 14-day quarantine on his return to the VI.

Mr Christopher said he would be turning over the responsibilities back to Mr Garde during the course of this week. He also creditied Mr Garde for creating an easy to follow plan.

“In his [Garde’s] absence the compound continued to function as normal as if he were here because one of the things Mr Garde did is that he structured things in such a way that whoever is in the superintendent’s chair merely has to follow the plan,” Christopher said.

Incident-free prison

The Acting Superintendent added that he was happy to report that that the prison was virtually incident-free during his tenure.

“There was no adverse situation that we encountered in his absence. One of the things we are proud to say is we had no serious incidents, we had no escapes, and given the current pandemic situation, we had no cases of COVID-19 detected within the prison.”

Mr Christopher also highlighted other successes achieved during his time as Acting Superintendent of Prisons.

“We also took the opportunity to draft a pandemic plan which we didn’t have before. So we coupled the pandemic plan with our hurricane disaster plan, and we also put in a business continuity plan in the event that something were to happen that the prison could continue to function,” he stated.

Alexander Mills was acting as Christopher’s deputy during his tenure as Acting Superintendent of Prisons.