In less than a week, In­sp Michael Seales moved from what he deemed was the "low­est point in his life to one of the high­est."

Two Wednes­days ago, on June 22, Seales was charged with mak­ing sedi­tious com­ments aris­ing out of a live tele­vi­sion in­ter­view last year.

On Mon­day, how­ev­er, de­spite hav­ing these charges still hang­ing over his head, Seales was vot­ed as the pres­i­dent of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA).

The Sun­day Guardian con­duct­ed an in­ter­view with Seales about his as­cen­sion in the midst of try­ing cir­cum­stances.

"It was the low­est part of my life, you know, with hav­ing to face what I am now fac­ing (be­ing charged)," Seales said.

The sit­u­a­tion arose out of a state­ment made by Seales dur­ing a live tele­vi­sion in­ter­view on June 24, last year.

Dur­ing that in­ter­view, Seales claimed that the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment was us­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Po­lice Ser­vice to frus­trate of­fi­cers and force a re­ac­tion which would be a rea­son to call a state of emer­gency and de­lay the gen­er­al elec­tion sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 7.

Seales, then the TTPSS­WA's sec­re­tary, was sus­pend­ed from the Po­lice Ser­vice on June 25.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice De­o­dath Du­lalchan was ap­point­ed to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Seales' con­duct.

On June 22, Seales ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court charged with mak­ing sedi­tious com­ments on June 24, 2015, at In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain. Seales was charged un­der Chap­ter 11:04 Sec­tion 4 (1) (B) of the Sedi­tion Act.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 8 of the Act, "Un­less oth­er­wise pro­vid­ed, every per­son guilty of an of­fence un­der this Act is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of $5,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for two years."

Seales said, "I was ac­tu­al­ly sur­prised that (be­ing charged) took place. I thought that was al­ways a con­tem­pla­tion but I was hop­ing that it was nev­er go­ing to hap­pen, but it did hap­pen.

"So what I had to do was ap­peal to some of the peo­ple in the mem­ber­ship (of the TTPSS­WA) and say 'al­right, this has hap­pened, do you want me to con­tin­ue?'

"When I got home the evening af­ter it hap­pened, I did not go to sleep un­til af­ter four o'clock the next morn­ing be­cause I re­ceived a lot of What­sApp mes­sages, a lot of tele­phone calls, and peo­ple came to my home and peo­ple stayed with me un­til af­ter four that morn­ing and the peo­ple who came said, 'Let's not give up. Con­tin­ue to still run for pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion. Please don't give up, we will sup­port you,' and be­cause of that, I said I would not give up," Seales said.

Seales said some peo­ple have ques­tioned the tim­ing be­tween the day the charge was laid and the TTPSS­WA elec­tion, five days apart.

The Sun­day Guardian asked his opin­ion on the mat­ter.

"The is­sue with re­la­tion to the tim­ing I can­not say, I will not say. Peo­ple in the TTPSS­WA mem­ber­ship have ex­pressed their own views but at the end of the day, I would just say I have moved from the low­est point of my life to one of the high­est points in my life in less than a week," Seales said.

On Mon­day's elec­tion, Seales re­ceived 785 votes to be­come TTPSS­WA pres­i­dent.

Seales' slate Po­lice Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) won each post they con­test­ed.

Seales' suc­ces­sor In­sp Anand Rame­sar is now the as­so­ci­a­tion's gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

Fol­low­ing the elec­tion, both men have switched roles at the TTPSS­WA.

"It was re­al­ly easy for us to make that switch and we have la­belled it not a tran­si­tion but a con­tin­u­a­tion of our ser­vice be­cause both Rame­sar and I share the same val­ues, the same dreams in terms of where we want to see the Po­lice Ser­vice and the as­so­ci­a­tion go, so it was easy for us to say let's con­tin­ue the mo­men­tum and try to just im­prove things," Seales said.

Seales, who has been in the Po­lice Ser­vice for more than 27 years, has vowed to rep­re­sent the as­so­ci­a­tion to the best of his abil­i­ty.

He said he in­tends to ad­dress the is­sue of hous­es for po­lice of­fi­cers, job eval­u­a­tion, griev­ance pro­ce­dures and the ab­sorp­tion of Spe­cial Re­served Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cers dur­ing his term as pres­i­dent.

Seales thanked the TTPSS­WA mem­bers and his fam­i­ly for their sup­port dur­ing this try­ing time in his life.

Seales' wife, Nicole Hospedales, was al­lowed to be his sure­ty for the sedi­tion charges.

'I'm leav­ing it all up to God'

Seales was giv­en the all-clear to con­test the TTPSS­WA's elec­tions af­ter pres­i­dent of the elec­tion com­mit­tee Sgt Toolah Julien re­ceived le­gal ad­vice.

The is­sue of Seales be­ing a sus­pend­ed po­lice of­fi­cer in charge of the as­so­ci­a­tion is an­oth­er mat­ter that re­quires fur­ther le­gal ad­vice, Julien said.

The two oth­er can­di­dates for the post of pres­i­dent have take ob­jec­tion to Seales lead­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion.

In­sp Richard Tay­lor, who rep­re­sent­ed the Van­guards, said Seales be­ing be­fore the courts for a crim­i­nal mat­ter and lead­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion will taint the pub­lic's per­cep­tion of the TTPSS­WA.

Cpl Dar­ling­ton Fran­cis who rep­re­sent­ed Po­lice for Po­lice ques­tioned the is­sue of a sus­pend­ed of­fi­cer lead­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion.

Seales said he was leav­ing it all up to God.