Sto­ries by Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Em­bat­tled Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has been cleared of any wrong­do­ing in the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA). 

The out­come of the probe was an­nounced by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, in a press re­lease late yes­ter­day evening.

Gas­pard said, “The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has ably pre­sent­ed to me a sub­stan­tial file con­tain­ing ev­i­dence and in light of the se­ri­ous ques­tions which that ev­i­dence has raised, con­cern­ing the CoP’s per­for­mance of her due dili­gence func­tions, I am of the opin­ion that while this cou­pled with her grant­i­ng of the Firearm Im­port Per­mit was suf­fi­cient to lead to her ar­rest as a sus­pect, the ev­i­dence present does not reach the re­quired thresh­old so as to lead to a crim­i­nal charge.

“Of course, it is trite law that an ar­rest should not and does not nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to a charge.”

Gas­pard said there was no re­al­is­tic prospect of se­cur­ing a con­vic­tion against Hare­wood-Christo­pher for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice or any oth­er of­fence.  

“I am fur­ther for­ti­fied in my con­vic­tion since the ev­i­dence has not un­earthed any im­prop­er mo­tive, con­sid­er­a­tion or quid pro quo which might have un­law­ful­ly un­der-gird­ed the CoP’s is­suance of the sub­ject per­mit,” he said.

The an­nounce­ment came two days be­fore High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand is due to de­liv­er his judg­ment in a law­suit brought by Hare­wood-Christo­pher chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) to sus­pend her and re­place her with Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin pend­ing the out­come of the probe. 

It al­so comes days be­fore the end of Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ex­tend­ed term as she cel­e­brates her 62nd birth­day on Thurs­day. 

Gas­pard ex­plained how the probe in­to Hare­wood-Christo­pher com­menced and not­ed that she is­sued the firearm im­port per­mit for the weapons. 

He point­ed out that un­der sec­tion 17(4) of the Firearms Act, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er must be sat­is­fied that the ap­pli­cant had good rea­sons for ac­quir­ing a firearm, can be per­mit­ted to have the weapon with­out en­dan­ger­ing pub­lic safe­ty and is of sound mind. 

“It was against this back­drop that the TTPS be­gan to in­ves­ti­gate, in­ter alia, whether the CoP had wil­ful­ly ne­glect­ed to per­form her du­ty and/or whether the CoP had wil­ful­ly mis­con­duct­ed her­self in the per­for­mance of her du­ty, in is­su­ing the Firearm Im­port Per­mit,” he said. 

“The word wil­ful­ly here is to be con­strued in the sense of the of­fice hold­er act­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly and of her be­ing ful­ly aware of her du­ty not to mis­con­duct her­self, in the man­ner un­der ref­er­ence.”

Gas­pard said the in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by DCP Suzette Mar­tin were re­quired to probe whether Hare­wood-Christo­pher did prop­er due dili­gence or fell be­low the stan­dards re­quired for her of­fice. 

Stat­ing that the thresh­old based on le­gal au­thor­i­ties is high, Gas­pard said, “These au­thor­i­ties al­so es­tab­lish that a mis­take, even a se­ri­ous one, will not suf­fice.” 

In late Jan­u­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed and de­tained by in­ves­ti­ga­tors. She was sus­pend­ed short­ly af­ter she was re­leased from cus­tody pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

Hare­wood-Christo­pher filed the law­suit chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of her sus­pen­sion. 

She al­so sought an in­junc­tion over the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to ap­point DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin to tem­porar­i­ly re­place her while she is on sus­pen­sion. 

The in­junc­tion was re­ject­ed by Jus­tice Sieuc­hand, who still grant­ed her leave to pur­sue her sub­stan­tive case.  

Hare­wood-Christo­pher at­tained re­tire­ment age months af­ter be­ing first ap­point­ed by the PolSC in Feb­ru­ary 2023.

The Cab­i­net led by the Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley moved to ex­tend Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s term by a year un­der Sec­tion 75 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act. 

The leg­is­la­tion em­pow­ers the Pres­i­dent to ex­tend the term of a first di­vi­sion of­fi­cer, who is due to re­tire if it is in the na­tion­al in­ter­est to do so. 

Po­lice of­fi­cers can re­ceive two fur­ther one-year ex­ten­sions based on an­nu­al per­for­mance re­views. 

So­cial ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj brought a law­suit chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the move. The case was re­ject­ed by High Court Judge Ricky Rahim, the Court of Ap­peal and most re­cent­ly by the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil in De­cem­ber, last year. 

El­der: CoP suf­fered im­mense dis­tress

Thank God it’s over!

This is how Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der, at­tor­ney for Hare­wood-Christo­pher sur­mised the de­ci­sion by the DPP to dis­miss the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her client for sup­posed mis­con­duct.

“This has caused my client im­mense dis­tress, suf­fer­ing, pub­lic hu­mil­i­a­tion both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. As I said from the in­cep­tion, I sat through that in­ter­view and there was no ev­i­dence what­so­ev­er to jus­ti­fy a charge. So, the DPP, hav­ing looked at all the doc­u­men­ta­tion, I mean it took some time, hav­ing giv­en it thought, care­ful thought, he has agreed that no crim­i­nal charges can be brought.”

El­der al­so not­ed that she had pub­licly pro­nounced that there was no ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing by her client af­ter she sat in on an in­ter­view with in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­fore Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s re­lease from cus­tody.

Asked whether the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) will now re­in­state Hare­wood-Christo­pher for the re­main­der of her con­tract, El­der said that will be up to the PolSC.

“They would have to look at it. They would have to care­ful­ly con­sid­er it be­cause by to­mor­row, Mon­day, we should get a rul­ing on the un­law­ful sus­pen­sion.”