Act­ing ACP An­dre Nor­ton thought he had suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied for the post of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in 2021, but has nev­er served a day on the job. Par­lia­ment nev­er con­firmed him, nor has any­one ever ex­plained why.

As Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to­day to de­bate the ap­point­ments of Wen­dell Lu­cas, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, and Natasha George to the rank of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Nor­ton, still sub­stan­tive­ly a Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent, re­mains with­out an­swers as his nom­i­na­tion has been all but for­got­ten.

In April 2021, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was pre­pared to con­firm three po­lice of­fi­cers to the post of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice—Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob, Mark Her­nan­dez and An­dre Nor­ton.

Ja­cob, who would go on to act as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, was quick­ly nom­i­nat­ed. But lat­er that month, Her­nan­dez, then head of the con­tro­ver­sial Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice caus­ing his ap­point­ment to fall through. But in­stead of the third name on the list, An­dre Nor­ton tak­ing the spot, it was nev­er brought back to Par­lia­ment for de­bate.

Last year, Nor­ton ab­stained from reap­ply­ing for the po­si­tion of DCP, since as far as he knows, he has nev­er been for­mal­ly de­nied the po­si­tion.

De­spite sev­er­al ques­tions over the years, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have not giv­en any rea­son for the lack of de­bate ei­ther.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions yes­ter­day to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, and Min­is­ter Stu­art Young who would have been Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter at the time. None re­spond­ed.

But se­nior sources with­in the TTPS be­lieve Nor­ton was sim­ply a ca­su­al­ty of in­fight­ing with for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith, top brass with­in the TTPS and the Gov­ern­ment.

The or­der the names ap­peared on the Par­lia­ment’s Or­der Pa­per is im­por­tant. Fol­low­ing the ex­ams and in­ter­views for the post, Ja­cob came first, Her­nan­dez sec­ond and Nor­ton third.

Mul­ti­ple sources fa­mil­iar with the process say the TTPS’ top brass may have been wary of Her­nan­dez’s name on the top of that list as it would mean that if the sub­stan­tive com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, was away for any rea­son, Her­nan­dez would then act as Com­mis­sion­er. Grif­fith and Her­nan­dez’s close re­la­tion­ship was no se­cret.

“They didn’t want to push for­ward for Mark Her­nan­dez to be ap­point­ed as the sub­stan­tive DCP and it’s be­cause they fig­ured Mark was Gary’s boy,” Gary Grif­fith said in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

“Be­cause of that, Nor­ton, un­for­tu­nate­ly now, could not jet­ti­son over Mark Her­nan­dez be­cause he has placed third. So Nor­ton had to pay the price and be­come the fall guy be­cause of some de­gree of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence not want­i­ng Mark Her­nan­dez to be ap­point­ed as the sub­stan­tive DCP.”

Nor­ton de­clined to com­ment for this sto­ry. This re­porter in­ter­viewed Nor­ton in 2021 and in­for­ma­tion for this sto­ry came from sev­er­al con­ver­sa­tions since then.

Nor­ton, de­spite hav­ing al­most 40 years in the TTPS, has stayed most­ly out of the pub­lic eye.

In a ser­vice where of­fi­cers of­ten be­come house­hold names through the me­dia, the snub from the post of DCP could eas­i­ly have been over­looked and for­got­ten.

He first ap­plied for the post of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er in 2017 and made it to the fi­nal stages of the in­ter­view process but that process too fiz­zled. He would have placed fourth in that process, beat­ing cur­rent Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

When he reap­plied in 2021, he again beat Hare­wood-Christo­pher ac­cord­ing to rank­ings seen by Guardian Me­dia.

Nor­ton worked his way up the ranks from a pa­trol of­fi­cer to in­ves­ti­ga­tions even­tu­al­ly mov­ing to­ward op­er­a­tions and then man­age­ment. He ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pates in strate­gic im­ple­men­ta­tion com­mit­tees with Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice with a front-row seat to TTPS pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion.

When he was in­ter­viewed in 2021, he hoped to merge com­put­er sci­ence and crim­i­nol­o­gy as a method of im­prov­ing the TTPS.

“What I would be look­ing at, through team­work, is ad­vis­ing ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers through ser­vice de­liv­ery, man­ag­ing wastage and look­ing at a sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach to tech­nol­o­gy ac­qui­si­tion,” he said then.

Nor­ton at the time was ex­cit­ed to be con­firmed in the po­si­tion.

“There will al­ways be that an­tic­i­pa­tion. You are hu­man. It’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty to give me the op­por­tu­ni­ty I en­vis­aged from the mo­ment I en­tered the acad­e­my on Sept 2, 1985. You’d have some emo­tions but no great fear. At the end of the day what­ev­er de­ci­sion is made won’t im­pact me neg­a­tive­ly and wane my en­thu­si­asm for be­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer,” he said.

Nor­ton is still on ac­tive du­ty and is not ex­pect­ed to re­tire un­til De­cem­ber 2025.