Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne has stepped down as head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice's Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit.

Samp­son-Browne, who is cur­rent­ly on va­ca­tion, has sig­nalled her in­ten­tion not to re­turn as man­ag­er of the unit.

Over the past five years, Samp­son-Browne has be­come the face of the TTPS' Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit and her de­ci­sion to leave has now sparked fears about the fu­ture of the unit.

The Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Samp­son-Browne on the sit­u­a­tion.

"I am on va­ca­tion and my va­ca­tion is end­ing in the mid­dle of Au­gust and I am en­joy­ing my va­ca­tion," Samp­son-Browne said.

Asked whether she will be re­turn­ing to her post as man­ag­er of the TTPS' Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit fol­low­ing her va­ca­tion, Samp­son-Browne said "No, I will not be.

"I am just weigh­ing my op­tions. I am just en­joy­ing what­ev­er va­ca­tion I have af­ter 46 years, and I am weigh­ing my op­tions as to what I want to do and how I want to do it," she said.

Samp­son-Browne was ap­point­ed the man­ag­er of the TTPS Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit in June 2011.

Be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed to the post she served more than 40 years in the TTPS and rose to the rank of as­sis­tant po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

She has a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree (ho­n­ours) in So­cial Work and a Mas­ter of Phi­los­o­phy in Gen­der Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

These achieve­ments made Samp­son-Browne the "ide­al can­di­date" for the role of the unit's man­ag­er.

The Sun­day Guardian at­tempt­ed un­suc­cess­ful­ly to con­tact act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams for a com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

More in­fo

The TTPS Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit was es­tab­lished in 2008, and over the past few years the de­mand for its ser­vices has been rapid­ly grow­ing.

The unit was es­tab­lished as a space where vic­tims and wit­ness­es could ex­press their feel­ings con­fi­den­tial­ly fol­low­ing the trau­ma ex­pe­ri­enced from crime.

Its pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tives are:

1. To ed­u­cate clients and oth­er stake­hold­ers with the in­ten­tion of min­imis­ing the risks of sec­ondary vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

2. To col­lab­o­rate with oth­er agen­cies with the aim of en­hanc­ing the unit's poli­cies and pro­grammes.

3. To de­vel­op a net­work sys­tem to har­monise gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal ini­tia­tives which pro­mote vic­tim and wit­ness sup­port.

4. To as­sist in pro­mot­ing re­spect for the hu­man dig­ni­ty of vic­tims through their in­ter­ac­tion with all el­e­ments of the Po­lice Ser­vice and by ex­ten­sion the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

A Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit is lo­cat­ed in all nine di­vi­sions of the Po­lice Ser­vice and at se­lect­ed po­lice sta­tions through­out the coun­try, in­clud­ing San­gre Grande, Arou­ca, Mor­vant, Care­nage, Ch­agua­nas, San Fer­nan­do, An­ti-Kid­nap­ping & Homi­cide, Pe­nal and To­ba­go.

The unit is said to as­sist over 2,000 vic­tims a year.