Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent In­sp Michael Seales says there needs to be a bet­ter func­tion­ing Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP) with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Seals said the cur­rent pro­gramme cur­rent­ly func­tions in­ef­fi­cient­ly main­ly due to lack of re­sources and the lack of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

Seales’ com­ments come in the wake of the death of Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ian Hamil­ton, whose body was found in the dor­mi­to­ry of the Po­lice Band Room at River­side, Port-of-Spain com­pound around 7 am yes­ter­day. In­ves­ti­ga­tors were im­me­di­ate­ly called in and his fam­i­ly no­ti­fied of the in­ci­dent.

Hamil­ton, an of­fi­cer of 15 years, was a mem­ber of the Po­lice Band and up to Sat­ur­day night had played along­side his band­mates at a char­i­ty event.

He re­cent­ly lost his fi­ancé af­ter she suc­cumbed to can­cer.

While some of his col­leagues said he was ap­par­ent­ly un­able to cope with her death and be­came very de­pressed, oth­ers said, to them, the de­ceased of­fi­cer showed no sign of de­pres­sion.

Seales de­scribed the in­ci­dent as un­for­tu­nate, adding that men­tal health was an is­sue with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

“It is triv­i­alised in the Po­lice Ser­vice but we have to see it for what it is. We know there are a num­ber of strate­gies which we de­ployed pre­vi­ous­ly, like the use of peer coun­sel­lors and so­cial work­ers but an ef­fec­tive EAP has not been rolled out,” Seales told the T&T Guardian.

“It is in the fi­nal stages, so much so that the as­so­ci­a­tion is al­so putting to­geth­er its own pro­gramme be­cause we have ex­pe­ri­enced that peo­ple are al­so un­will­ing to ac­cess the pro­gramme due to the lack of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.”

He said there is al­so the prob­lem of stig­ma­ti­sa­tion, which does fur­ther harm to of­fi­cers.

One of Hamil­ton’s col­leagues de­scribed him as a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer who was al­so very gift­ed mu­si­cal­ly.

“We nev­er know what a per­son is go­ing through. It’s a re­al loss es­pe­cial­ly for some­one who was so tal­ent­ed. He was an easy-go­ing per­son,” the of­fi­cer said.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to Hamil­ton’s fam­i­ly. Grif­fith is al­so in talks with the fam­i­ly to of­fer what­ev­er as­sis­tance the Po­lice Ser­vice can dur­ing their time of grief.

Of­fi­cers of the Port of Spain CID and Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.