Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob has con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia by for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia briefly on Mon­day, a day af­ter the video went vi­ral, Ja­cob said the Cy­ber Crime Unit is cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing where Vol­ney was at the time he did the video.

He added that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are how­ev­er yet to con­tact Vol­ney on it to find out specifics to de­ter­mine whether he was at a lo­cal beach or a beach out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Vol­ney in the video boast­ed that “for­tu­nate­ly,” he was “one of those who can af­ford to pay to come in the sea­wa­ter” and that there was “not one damn thing” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley could do about it.

Beach­es in this coun­try are cur­rent­ly closed un­der pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions to curb the spread of Covid-19.

In the video, the for­mer judge said, “Aye Kei­th Row­ley look at me, Her­bert Vol­ney ... you see where I go­ing? I go­ing in de sea, watch de sea...look de sea, look de sea - see?”

Vol­ney ac­cused Row­ley of “suf­fer­ing the peo­ple, keep­ing the peo­ple away from de sea, which has all the bless­ings of the Lord to deal with COVID” and even called him a “Wicked man, grim reaper and mean man”.

On Sun­day, T&T Guardian ques­tioned Vol­ney who on­ly con­firmed that his beach vis­it was on Sun­day. He did not say where he was.

Vol­ney was fired from the PP gov­ern­ment in 2012 con­cern­ing the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of the in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice Act. He sub­se­quent­ly re­signed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in Ju­ly 2013. —Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant