Speaking out against powerful institutions can be a lonely undertaking. Yvette Williams MBE says one way of changing the balance is deceptively simple: do not do it alone.

"There’s safety in numbers," Williams, co-founder of Justice4Grenfell, told The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) journalist Jerrin Reynolds-Velasquez in an interview last Wednesday about the risks of challenging power in a small, closely connected society.

The interview, part of TCJ Forum, examined the personal and professional consequences that can follow when people challenge institutions or raise concerns about wrongdoing.

In Cayman, the question carries particular weight. Professional, political, family and social networks can overlap, Reynolds-Velasquez noted, meaning the person someone reports today could be connected to a future employer, business partner, relative or friend.

Williams said that interconnectedness could significantly affect the calculation someone makes before speaking out.

"It impacts hugely," she said.

Power at close quarters

Williams, who spent 14 years as head of Equality and Diversity for the Crown Prosecution Service in London, has spent years confronting questions of institutional accountability. She co-founded Justice4Grenfell following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, in which 72 people died.

Asked how speaking out in a large country such as the UK compared with doing so in Cayman, Williams said challenging authority carried risks in either setting.

"I think it’s difficult speaking out anywhere," she said. "There is kind of almost like a risk assessment you have to do around it."

She suggested those pressures could be amplified in a smaller jurisdiction.

"I imagine that is tenfold in a small place like the Cayman," Williams said. "And that is because I think the power dynamic is a bit closer."

Williams’ argument raises a broader question for small societies: whether having a formal right to speak is enough if people perceive social or professional consequences from exercising it. Her comparison with Cayman was an assessment based on her experience challenging institutions in the UK, rather than evidence that such consequences are more common on the Islands.

Williams also cautioned against confusing freedom of expression with an entitlement to have an allegation accepted.

"The right to free speech does not give you the right to be believed," she said. "And belief is often a choice that people make."

When silence may not mean satisfaction

One of Williams’ sharpest arguments concerned something institutions can regard as reassuring: the absence of complaints.

Drawing on her experience examining workplace equality, she questioned whether low complaint numbers necessarily demonstrated that employees were satisfied.

"That tells me that your workforce doesn’t have the confidence to speak up because they fear the consequences for themselves down the line," she said.

Policies alone, Williams argued, were insufficient.

"We have lovely policies. HR policies are absolutely lovely. They look really beautiful on shelves," she said. "But actually implementing them and implementing them in a fair way is really difficult for employers."

There is some evidence that concern about the consequences of reporting has arisen in Cayman, although it does not establish how widespread that concern is.

The Office of the Ombudsman reported in 2020 that its investigators had encountered people who appeared reluctant to make protected disclosures after learning that the Whistleblower Protection Act did not prevent them from being dismissed.

"Our investigators have reported that people seem reluctant to make a protected disclosure when they learn that the Whistleblower Protection Act does not prevent them from being fired from their jobs," the office said.

The Act instead provides remedies when detrimental action is taken against someone because of a protected disclosure.

That distinction goes to the calculation Williams described. A legal remedy after detrimental action is not necessarily the same thing, from the perspective of someone deciding whether to report, as confidence that they will avoid professional consequences in the first place.

Whistleblower protection has remained among the less-used services administered by the Ombudsman. In its reporting for 2021, the office called it "the most underused service we provide to the public", after receiving four enquiries from potential whistleblowers that year.

The latest annual report shows nine whistleblowing enquiries were received in 2024, up from three in 2023. One new protected disclosure was received during 2024, while three were carried forward from the previous year. One disclosure was resolved and three remained open at year-end.

The figures do not establish why relatively few protected disclosures are made and, by themselves, are not evidence that employees are afraid to report wrongdoing.

They could reflect a range of factors. What the Ombudsman's earlier observation does establish is narrower: its investigators had encountered potential whistleblowers who appeared reluctant after learning the limits of the protection available to them.

Cayman does have statutory protections for whistleblowers. The Act applies to employers and employees in both the public and private sectors, while the Ombudsman says a whistleblower’s identity and information supplied through a protected disclosure are confidential.

The legislation also provides remedies where detrimental action is taken against a whistleblower, including potential compensation and, in some circumstances, reinstatement.

The distinction is important: Cayman has a mechanism for protected disclosures. Williams’ challenge is whether people feel sufficiently safe to use it.

"Together we’re powerful"

Williams pointed to the campaign following Grenfell as an example of how collective action could shift the balance between communities and powerful institutions.

She said campaigners repeatedly sought a meeting with the then-prime minister but initially received no response. They changed tactics.

"We got an ad agency involved and we took three billboards around London saying, 72 deaths, no arrests, how come?" Williams said.

She said Grenfell was subsequently highlighted at major entertainment awards, while grime artist Stormzy raised the issue at the BRIT Awards.

"And within a week of those things happening, we were invited to Downing Street to discuss the questions that we had asked," Williams said.

For Williams, the experience demonstrated that people challenging institutions did not always have to follow the route laid out for them.

"Our voices are deemed small, but actually, together we’re powerful," she said.

Williams described similar tactics at local-government level, where groups would attend meetings together to ensure their concerns were heard.

"We go en masse because there’s safety in numbers," she said.

In Williams’ experience as a campaigner, collective action was not simply about making a campaign louder. It also meant an individual did not have to become the sole face of a challenge. That experience is not directly comparable to an employee making a protected disclosure, but it underpins her broader advice not to confront powerful institutions in isolation.

"You can’t do it on your own," Williams said. "Sometimes they will pick you off as one person on your own."

A lonely road

The conversation moved from public campaigning to the different circumstances faced by employees when Reynolds-Velasquez asked how employees should weigh duties of confidentiality against the wider public interest when they encountered information they believed exposed wrongdoing.

Williams did not portray the choice as straightforward.

"Employees do find themselves on their own," she said. "It is a very lonely road to travel."

People considering that route, she said, should understand the potential consequences and build support around themselves.

"Part of that, if they do choose to take it, is about looking after themselves, making sure that they have a pool of people around them, family, friends, community that will support them," Williams said.

But protection for people raising concerns does not mean allegations should escape scrutiny.

Speaking about the media’s role in challenging authority, Williams said there was value in "speaking truth to power", but immediately raised another question.

"Where is your evidence? How do you defend what you are saying?" she said.

The distinction is central to her argument: people need space to raise concerns, while what they say must still withstand scrutiny.

The Cayman calculation

Cayman’s size returned to the centre of the interview when Reynolds-Velasquez raised the overlapping relationships that characterise life in the Islands.

For Williams, genuine independence required applying the same standards even when the person under scrutiny was someone close.

"Independent doesn’t mean backing your mates," she said. "You need to be clear that at some point you might have to investigate your own mother.”

For young people contemplating whether to speak out, Williams’ advice was to begin with someone they trusted rather than trying to confront an institution alone.

"Believe in your intuition," she said. "You know what’s right and wrong, you know what’s fair."

A person might not initially possess all the information needed to establish what happened, she said, but could begin by discussing the concern with someone else.

"Just saying it, start somewhere, talk to one person and you’d be surprised," Williams said.

Her advice to trust one's intuition did not remove the need for evidence she had stressed earlier. Rather, she presented an initial concern as a reason to start asking questions, not as proof that an allegation was true.

Making it safe to speak

Ultimately, Williams turned the question from the courage of individuals towards the responsibility of institutions and the state.

Having argued that Cayman’s size could increase the perceived risks of challenging power, Williams turned to how protections could be built around those willing to raise concerns.

"Because that’s the role of the state as well, to protect their individuals," she said.

The Ombudsman has itself identified issues with the existing framework. Its 2024 annual report said the office had addressed "some of the difficulties with the current legislation" with the Parliamentary Oversight Committee.

Williams argued that protections also required consequences if they were to influence behaviour.

"If there’s no sanction to something, people won’t do it," she said.

Her final point brought the interview back to the difference between telling people to be courageous and creating conditions in which they can safely act.

"Not only do communities need to feel confident to speak up, they need to feel safe, that if something happens to them, something will be done,” Williams said. “And that’s just basic humanity."