Gail Alexan­der

Po­lice are ad­dress­ing the mat­ter which for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith wrote to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob re­cent­ly, seek­ing a probe of “pos­si­ble mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and pos­si­ble sedi­tion” by for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad.

Grif­fith had al­so called for the probe to in­clude any­one who pre­vent­ed the last com­mis­sion from do­ing its job.

The po­lice re­sponse was con­firmed by top po­lice source yes­ter­day.

Par­lia­ment on Fri­day ap­proved no­ti­fi­ca­tion for Ja­cob to be ap­point­ed act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Grif­fith wrote Ja­cob on Oc­to­ber 13– when Grif­fith was act­ing CoP– on a “re­quest and re­port” for a probe on “con­spir­a­cy to vi­o­late the Con­sti­tu­tion for pos­si­ble mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice by Seep­er­sad and any­one that pre­vent­ed/in­flu­enced the com­mis­sion from do­ing their job .”

This con­cerned Seep­er­sad and the CoP mer­it list done by the com­mis­sion in her tenure. Af­ter Grif­fith’s con­tract end­ed on Au­gust 17, a se­lec­tion process was done.

Seep­er­sad took a list of sev­en nom­i­nees– in­clud­ing Grif­fith’s name–to Pres­i­dent’s House around Au­gust 12 , but with­drew the list.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, stat­ed a re­port by two re­tired se­cu­ri­ty heads on firearms is­sue– and oth­er re­ports formed part of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ex­er­cise cur­rent­ly un­der­way and which will move to con­clu­sion at the ap­pro­pri­ate time

Grif­fith, in his Oc­to­ber let­ter, told Ja­cob that on Sep­tem­ber 2021, he had a con­ver­sa­tion with com­mis­sion mem­bers on John’s probe.

He said the com­mis­sion had “no au­thor­i­ty” to launch that un­less it di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to a com­mis­sion­er or deputy be­ing seen as a sus­pect.

He said that wasn’t the case as stat­ed by John and it meant the com­mis­sion “act­ed out­side their au­thor­i­ty.”

Based on the con­ver­sa­tion with the mem­bers, Grif­fith said, “It gave me good rea­son to be­lieve they were di­rect­ed, in­struct­ed, in­flu­enced by ex­ter­nal forces not (sic) pre­vent the com­plet­ed mer­it list from go­ing for­ward.”

Grif­fith said he was al­so told by a com­mis­sion mem­ber they were “stopped and in­flu­enced by a cer­tain Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.”

Grif­fith fur­ther stat­ed he “over­heard” that Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Seep­er­sad to “en­sure he didn’t re­turn to of­fice af­ter his va­ca­tion.”

Grif­fith wrote Ja­cob again on Thurs­day not­ing he’d sub­mit­ted three re­ports when he was com­mis­sion­er and sent re­minders to Ja­cob af­ter, “seek­ing im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tions” - but was yet to re­ceive “even ac­knowl­edge­ment” of his re­port.

Grif­fith claimed he had since been fur­ther ad­vised the mer­it list was in­deed stamped as be­ing re­ceived at Pres­i­dent’s House and “that the com­mis­sion’s chair­man was in­deed in­flu­enced, ha­rassed, in­tim­i­dat­ed or di­rect­ed by a se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial” to take back the list.

Yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad de­clined com­ment on claims of be­ing “ha­rassed, in­tim­i­dat­ed.”

Ex- com­mis­sion­ers Su­san Craig-James, Court­ney Mc­Nish, Roger Kawals­ingh did not an­swer calls.

Grif­fith had rec­om­mend­ed Ja­cob in­ter­view him, John, Hinds , ex Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and all pre­vi­ous/present com­mis­sion mem­bers and gave ques­tions on what to ask them.