Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

The last re­main­ing mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) is ex­pect­ed with­in the next 24-48 hours, ac­cord­ing to re­li­able sources. The res­ig­na­tion on Fri­day of Dr Su­san Craig-James, which left the PolSC with­out a quo­rum, fol­lowed a meet­ing last week at which mem­bers raised ob­jec­tions to how the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was sent on leave. There were con­cerns that prop­er pro­ce­dure was now fol­lowed.

Un­der Sec­tion 122 of the Com­mis­sion, the PolSC con­sists of a chair­man and four mem­bers but ear­ly last week one of its mem­bers, Court­ney Mc­Nish, re­signed al­leged­ly over the way the PolSC’s Chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad had han­dled the sus­pen­sion of Grif­fith. Mc­Nish, sources said, was “un­hap­py” about how Seep­er­sad han­dled the sus­pen­sion of Grif­fith. This left the Com­mis­sion on the brink of col­lapse.

The on­go­ing de­ba­cle was trig­gered by a le­gal dis­pute in which Grif­fith was al­leged­ly sus­pend­ed by the PolSC. This in turn led Grif­fith to file a law­suit claim­ing the Com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend him, based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion re­lat­ed to the is­suance of firearm user’s li­cens­es (FULs), was ar­rived at un­fair­ly. He is al­so claim­ing his rights to nat­ur­al jus­tice and pro­tec­tion of the law, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, were breached.

Le­gal sources told Guardian Me­dia that over the last few days Grif­fith’s le­gal team had been work­ing on a set­tle­ment agree­ment with the PSC.

A source in­di­cat­ed that Roger Kawals­ingh is writ­ing his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion and is ex­pect­ed to hand it to Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weeks by to­mor­row or by the lat­est Tues­day.

“It seems that he will be re­sign­ing by all ac­counts,” a source told Guardian Me­dia.

Re­ports are that Kawals­ingh will not on­ly ten­der his res­ig­na­tion but ex­plain in his let­ter “all the con­cerns raised” sur­round­ing this con­tro­ver­sy. An­oth­er source added that Kawals­ingh is adamant about pro­tect­ing his name.

Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes had writ­ten to Kawals­ingh ask­ing how con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion in the sus­pen­sion let­ter meant on­ly for the eyes of the PolSC mem­bers were leaked in an email to for­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith. Kawals­ingh de­clined to com­ment on the is­sue.