Derek Achong

A busi­ness­man from east Trinidad has been giv­en per­mis­sion to sue the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over the fail­ure to re­turn his firearm user’s li­cense (FUL) since 2021. 

Ear­li­er this week, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim grant­ed leave for Dirk Barnes to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the de­lay. 

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Barnes, who is the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of firearm deal­er­ship 868 Tac­ti­cal Firearms and Ac­ces­sories and se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny Air Sup­port Tac­ti­cal Lim­it­ed, was grant­ed a FUL in Au­gust 2015. 

Pri­or to start­ing the com­pa­nies, Barnes served as a com­mis­sioned of­fi­cer in the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) and ob­tained the rank of Ma­jor. He served as the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of the En­gi­neer Bat­tal­ion and was trained in com­bat en­gi­neer­ing, ex­plo­sives, and de­mo­li­tion. 

In Au­gust 2020, Barnes sub­mit­ted his FUL to the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice as his se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny made an ap­pli­ca­tion for a firearm dis­pos­al per­mit (FDP) in or­der to sell two li­censed shot­guns. 

Al­most ex­act­ly a year lat­er, Barnes sub­mit­ted an ap­pli­ca­tion to vary his FUL in re­la­tion to five firearms. Hav­ing not re­ceived a re­sponse to the ap­pli­ca­tions, Barnes sought to with­draw them in Au­gust, last year. 

Barnes claimed that while at the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Firearm De­part­ment of­fice, he was told that his FUL could not be lo­cat­ed and was ad­vised to ap­ply for a du­pli­cate. 

Sev­er­al months lat­er, Barnes con­tact­ed the de­part­ment via tele­phone to en­quire about the du­pli­cate. He claimed that he was told by an of­fi­cer that the com­pa­ny’s FDP ap­pli­ca­tion from 2020 was not grant­ed be­cause it (the ap­pli­ca­tion) was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed as it was not signed by the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. 

The of­fi­cer al­so re­port­ed­ly claimed that Barnes’ FUL was be­ing with­held as a re­sult of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Through the law­suit, Barnes is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that the de­ci­sion to with­hold his FUL was il­le­gal, ir­ra­tional, and un­rea­son­able. 

The case is sched­uled to come up for case man­age­ment on May 23. Barnes was rep­re­sent­ed by Matthew Gayle and Vi­dal Pooran.