Geisha Kow­lessar

Po­lice of­fi­cers are smil­ing all the way to the bank as the ma­jor­i­ty have re­ceived their back­pay. The rest, how­ev­er, are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive their monies by the end of this month.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, new­ly-in­stalled pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare , In­sp Michael Seales, said the mem­ber­ship was pleased that Gov­ern­ment had ful­filled its promise.

He said some 70 per cent had re­ceived back­pay and those who did not was as the re­sult of some mi­nor is­sues re­gard­ing the pro­cess­ing of doc­u­ments.

"This would be is­sues re­lat­ing to over­pay­ment and sick leave. But the mat­ter is be­ing sort­ed out and we are con­fi­dent that the of­fi­cers would in fact be paid," Seales added.

Seales, who is on sus­pen­sion and is fac­ing sedi­tion changes fol­low­ing state­ment made on a morn­ing pro­gramme last year, won the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed as­so­ci­a­tion elec­tion by a land­slide.

How­ev­er, there have been calls by his de­trac­tors to step down amid claims that he would bring the Po­lice Ser­vice in­to dis­re­pute.

But Seales shot back say­ing, "The mem­ber­ship have spo­ken."

Sev­er­al of­fi­cers de­scribed Seales as a "mod­el of­fi­cer," who is al­ways will­ing to go above and be­yond the call of du­ty, adding that he had the wel­fare of of­fi­cers at heart.

Oth­er of­fi­cers even ex­pressed sur­prise that Seales was charged in the first place and vowed to con­tin­ue to ral­ly around him.

Run­ner-up for the post of pres­i­dent, In­sp Richard Tay­lor, from the slate Van­guards, had said Seales' predica­ment could have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the Po­lice Ser­vice.

"He is be­fore the court for a crim­i­nal mat­ter and is rep­re­sent­ing a law body. The pub­lic will view us in a par­tic­u­lar way. It will not au­gur too well with us in terms of how the pub­lic will view us.

"We want to ask the pub­lic with re­gards to Seales on sus­pen­sion and lead­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, we know the pub­lic will have a par­tic­u­lar per­cep­tion of us. We are hop­ing that they will not paint us with the same broad brush," Richards said.

Sec­ond run­ner-up for the top post, Cpl Dar­ling­ton Fran­cis, of Po­lice For Po­lice, af­ter con­grat­u­lat­ing Seales on his vic­to­ry had al­so raised the is­sue that he was a sus­pend­ed po­lice of­fi­cer lead­ing a po­lice as­so­ci­a­tion.

Fran­cis said: "I am very con­cerned that he may not be able to serve his third term be­cause the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er can on­ly sec­ond an of­fi­cer to the Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion if he is an ac­tive mem­ber of the ser­vice. It was okay while he was an ac­tive mem­ber and then sus­pend­ed."