Hav­ing worked close­ly with for­mer Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice James Philbert on be­half of the pri­vate sec­tor for a pe­ri­od of time, I am con­vinced that he is a ded­i­cat­ed and high­ly pro­fes­sion­al of­fi­cer who has served T&T well.

Not­ing the crude and in­ex­plic­a­ble man­ner in which his ser­vices have been ter­mi­nat­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (re­in­forced by a press re­lease which said noth­ing), I feel com­pelled to pub­licly thank him for his most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion.

The in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty shown to a man of high of­fice who has put his life on the line for some 42 years to pro­tect the laws and cit­i­zens of this coun­try rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about the judg­ment and in­deed cred­i­bil­i­ty of the new­ly ap­point­ed com­mis­sion.

When Philbert was ap­point­ed in 2008 there was a wild­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ing en­vi­ron­ment on every front as it per­tained to law and or­der. The sit­u­a­tion re­mains un­sat­is­fac­to­ry though the mount­ing mur­der rate has at least been ar­rest­ed.

But his per­for­mance goes way be­yond these num­bers for his sev­er­al ini­tia­tives have led to a steadi­ly im­prov­ing im­age for the Po­lice Ser­vice: a sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater po­lice pres­ence through­out the coun­try, speed­i­er ac­tion in ap­pre­hend­ing crim­i­nal sus­pects, in­creas­es in the seiz­ing of il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, and the vir­tu­al elim­i­na­tion of kid­nap­ping. He has al­so demon­strat­ed a lev­el of in­de­pen­dence of ac­tion un­der both the new and for­mer Gov­ern­ment which is high­ly de­sir­able though unique in T&T's ex­pe­ri­ence.

These are not ar­gu­ments for re­tain­ing Philbert's ser­vices for he is past re­tire­ment age and a new Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to look for even more ag­gres­sive re­sults. The view that new ideas and lead­er­ship should be pur­sued is one to which they are en­ti­tled. But why be un­civilised about it? Why be­have in a man­ner that ap­pears de­signed to hu­mil­i­ate a man who has giv­en out­stand­ing ser­vice in very dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances? Be as­sured Philbert that there are many in this coun­try who great­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the role you have played and thank you for your out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion.

Ken­neth Gor­don

Glen­coe