Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) and at­tor­ney Nizam Mo­hammed and Pamela El­der, SC, want the PolSC to ex­plain why both Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Ju­nior Ben­jamin did not re­ceive of­fi­cial let­ters yes­ter­day re­gard­ing their roles and du­ties.

One let­ter will of­fi­cial­ly lift Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s sus­pen­sion and see her re­sume du­ties as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and the oth­er re­vok­ing Ben­jamin’s act­ing ap­point­ment as head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“What should have been done was the is­suance of the let­ter of re­in­state­ment giv­ing her the au­thor­i­ty to go in­to po­lice head­quar­ters and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, a let­ter should have been giv­en by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin, in­di­cat­ing to him that this event has tak­en place and as a re­sult of that, his act­ing ap­point­ment has been re­moved,” said Mo­hammed.

Yes­ter­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher did not go to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing as she wait­ed for the of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence from the PolSC.

The ab­sence of the of­fi­cial let­ters re­port­ed­ly left ques­tions as to who was in charge of the TTPS.

On Mon­day, af­ter just over three months of be­ing on sus­pen­sion, Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­turned to her of­fice and was giv­en a cer­e­mo­ni­al han­dover by Ben­jamin.

This fol­lowed the de­ci­sion by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to drop the case against her due to in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

The PolSC chair­man, Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace, said he hopes Hare­wood-Christo­pher re­ceives her let­ter by to­day, the last day of her con­tract be­fore she turns 62 on Thurs­day, May 15.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney, El­der, SC, al­so ques­tioned the com­mis­sion’s tar­di­ness.

“It is shock­ing! It is scan­dalous! It is de­plorable! I can­not find a word to de­scribe the con­duct of the ser­vice com­mis­sion in not is­su­ing this let­ter with dis­patch. I can­not un­der­stand why. What is their game? What are they hop­ing to achieve? You have made a de­ci­sion to lift the sus­pen­sion, im­me­di­ate­ly put that de­ci­sion in writ­ing, and for­ward it to the com­mis­sion­er.”

She said it was “de­plorable” that the com­mis­sion could not put in­to writ­ing a de­ci­sion that was tak­en and an­nounced since Mon­day morn­ing.

El­der said there should be no am­bi­gu­i­ty as to who leads the TTPS since her client’s sus­pen­sion was over.

“One has to look at the nat­ur­al con­se­quences, which flow from the lift­ing of the sus­pen­sion. This is not a com­mis­sion­er who was dis­missed, and you’re look­ing to re­in­state her. This is not a com­mis­sion­er against whom dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings were in­sti­tut­ed. This is a com­mis­sion­er who you no­ti­fy that she has been sus­pend­ed, and her sus­pen­sion con­tin­ues un­til the ces­sa­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion has come to an end. Why the de­lay? That is what every­one is ask­ing. What is tak­ing so long to af­fix your sig­na­ture to a let­ter, which your coun­sel in­di­cat­ed to the court has been set­tled?”

To­day is Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s last day un­less she re­ceives an ex­ten­sion from Cab­i­net for a third and fi­nal year.

If she re­ceives her let­ter re­in­stat­ing her, Ben­jamin will al­so re­ceive a let­ter re­vok­ing his tem­po­rary lead­er­ship. This means that on Thurs­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice may be with­out a com­mis­sion­er or act­ing com­mis­sion­er.

It will not be the first time this year that has oc­curred.

The TTPS went with­out an act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er from Jan­u­ary 31 to Feb­ru­ary 6. Par­lia­ment ap­proved Ben­jamin’s act­ing po­si­tion on Feb­ru­ary 5.

Mean­while, DCP Suzette Mar­tin, head of the In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, who led the probe against the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, said it was not about per­son­al­i­ties but pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

“The team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors I led did the job that was en­trust­ed to them pro­fes­sion­al­ly, thor­ough­ly and with­out bias. The DPP guid­ed the team through­out the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the out­come re­flect­ed same. The fo­cus was al­ways based on the facts and ev­i­dence, not the per­son­al­i­ties in­volved. To­day marks a new day to con­tin­ue serv­ing the peo­ple with ded­i­ca­tion and pur­pose as we con­tin­ue work­ing to­geth­er to make the coun­try safe once again,” Mar­tin said.

On Mon­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said there was no an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween her and DCP Suzette Mar­tin.