Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is re­view­ing a pre­lim­i­nary re­port on the dis­missal of cor­rup­tion charges against sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers, vow­ing swift ac­tion as pub­lic out­cry mounts over what many have de­scribed as a sys­temic fail­ure in law en­force­ment and the jus­tice sys­tem.

Speak­ing through head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Joanne Archie, Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­firmed on Wednes­day night that she has re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al re­ports on the mat­ter and will meet with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, to dis­cuss the is­sue.

“I have re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al re­ports on this re­cent de­vel­op­ment and will pro­vide a re­sponse in due course,” she stat­ed.

On Mon­day, Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va dis­missed charges against the of­fi­cers, cit­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al fail­ures, in­clud­ing the ab­sence of wit­ness­es, miss­ing ev­i­dence, and non-com­pli­ance with court pro­ce­dures. The of­fi­cers had been charged in April 2023 fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion against a San­gre Grande busi­ness­man dur­ing an op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing il­le­gal gam­bling es­tab­lish­ments.

A vi­ral video pur­port­ed­ly show­ing of­fi­cers seiz­ing cash dur­ing the op­er­a­tion had sparked pub­lic out­cry, but de­fence at­tor­neys ar­gued the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was in­com­plete and lacked sub­stan­tive ev­i­dence.

De­fence at­tor­ney Ul­ric Sker­rit, rep­re­sent­ing one of the of­fi­cers, sharply crit­i­cised the han­dling of the case, de­scrib­ing the out­come as in­evitable. “Noth­ing was dis­closed to the de­fence or the court. Un­til the po­lice get their act to­geth­er, these dis­missals will con­tin­ue,” Sker­rit said.

One of the ac­cused of­fi­cers, speak­ing anony­mous­ly, de­scribed the or­deal as deeply dis­heart­en­ing. “I feel be­trayed by the sys­tem I swore to serve. Imag­ine be­ing a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer and find­ing your­self be­hind bars for sev­en days. I still can’t ful­ly process it.”

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this case and oth­ers, cit­ing pro­ce­dur­al fail­ures as a re­cur­ring is­sue. Ac­cord­ing to the PCA, 12 of­fi­cers have been dis­charged from cas­es this week due to laps­es such as fail­ing to ap­pear in court or com­ply with di­rec­tives. In a state­ment, the PCA crit­i­cised the TTPS for its han­dling of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal mat­ters.

At­tor­ney: DPP must be held ac­count­able

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land dis­tanced the min­istry from the le­gal fail­ures, stress­ing that pros­e­cu­tions fall un­der the DPP’s purview. How­ev­er, Scot­land em­pha­sised on­go­ing re­forms to im­prove po­lice ef­fi­cien­cy.

“We are work­ing on a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme for po­lice of­fi­cers who act as com­plainants and pros­e­cu­tors to en­sure more ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion in court,” he said on Wednes­day while de­clin­ing to com­ment on the specifics of the dis­missed case.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin, who over­saw the ini­tial probe, stat­ed that the case re­mains un­der re­view. “We need to ex­am­ine the court re­port and the PSB find­ings be­fore de­ter­min­ing the next steps,” she said.

Se­nior at­tor­ney Jeron Joseph, who for­mer­ly worked at the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions of­fice, called the col­lapse of the case a “trav­es­ty of jus­tice” and a blow to pub­lic con­fi­dence in the jus­tice sys­tem. He crit­i­cised both the TTPS and the DPP for their roles in the de­ba­cle.

“This out­come high­lights a glar­ing break­down in ac­count­abil­i­ty and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy. Jus­tice must not on­ly be done but must be seen to be done,” Joseph said, call­ing for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against those re­spon­si­ble.

Joseph al­so ques­tioned the DPP’s de­ci­sion not to as­sign state coun­sel to man­age the pros­e­cu­tion. “Ex­pect­ing the po­lice to han­dle a case against their own is im­pru­dent, as it risks bias and con­flicts of in­ter­est,” he said, adding that the DPP must be held ac­count­able for the fail­ure to safe­guard the in­tegri­ty of the case.