Nine days ago, the Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury re­signed af­ter mount­ing pres­sure over his re­fusal to take ac­tion on a child abuser as­so­ci­at­ed with the Church of Eng­land. At­tor­ney John Smyth, QC, was a se­r­i­al child abuser who raised funds for the church and ran youth camps.

Peo­ple in po­si­tions of trust con­tin­ue to dis­ap­point us. The priest who abus­es chil­dren, the doc­tor who per­forms un­nec­es­sary surgery, the at­tor­ney who cheats peo­ple of their land, the hus­band who be­trays his wife’s trust by cheat­ing on her, and the cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cer who takes bribes.

What dri­ves peo­ple to abuse or be­tray oth­ers to sat­is­fy their self­ish needs? One’s con­science is not sta­t­ic and de­vel­ops over time, learned from par­ents, peers, ex­pe­ri­ences, and so­ci­ety, an evolv­ing set of val­ues and be­liefs that tell us how we “should” act.

One’s faith­ful hus­band might be in­flu­enced by peers, cul­ture, and so­ci­ety to cheat. His sense of right or wrong changed. Par­ents would hope­ful­ly show us em­pa­thy, fair­ness, and con­se­quences. Guilt, shame, and em­pa­thy are part of emo­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

A child grow­ing up in an abu­sive en­vi­ron­ment may have a dif­fer­ent sense of right and wrong than a child from a nur­tur­ing en­vi­ron­ment. So­ci­ety al­so ex­pos­es us to its norms, like “a deputy es­sen­tial” or “all ah we is thief.”

Some peo­ple dis­en­gage from their prin­ci­ples to jus­ti­fy un­eth­i­cal be­hav­iour. An of­fend­er may view the vic­tim as de­serv­ing of harm, be­ing dif­fer­ent, mak­ing it eas­i­er to vi­o­late their rights, “They are rich, have mon­ey and house while we suf­fer­ing.”

Some rephrase their ac­tions in a way to seem more ac­cept­able. A po­lice might call bribes “ex­tra com­pen­sa­tion” or “in­sur­ance for old age.” A cor­rupt of­fi­cer might feel bribes are part of the “sys­tem” and jus­ti­fy their ac­tion as part of larg­er group be­hav­iour (sys­temic cor­rup­tion or group­think), feel­ing less per­son­al­ly ac­count­able.

Some dis­place re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, blam­ing oth­ers. A child mo­les­ter might say, “I was just fol­low­ing what I was taught” or “It’s the child’s fault for se­duc­ing me,” min­imis­ing the harm and con­vinc­ing them­selves that the act was mu­tu­al or harm­less.

Some adopt a rel­a­tivis­tic view of moral­i­ty, with a sub­jec­tive dis­tinc­tion be­tween right and wrong, “It’s not as bad as what oth­ers do,” or “If our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers fat­ten­ing them­selves, then I could take a small thing.” Over time, peo­ple be­come de­sen­si­tised to their im­moral be­hav­iour; a mi­nor vi­o­la­tion al­lows for more ex­treme ac­tions.

Once a be­hav­iour be­comes ha­bit­u­al, it seems less im­moral. So we need to set bound­aries and con­se­quences. Which brings me to the dis­missal of a case against five po­lice of­fi­cers two days ago. Their at­tor­ney, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, suc­cess­ful­ly ar­gued their case.

The free­ing of these of­fi­cers comes on the heels of the col­lapse of an­oth­er high-pro­file case on Mon­day in­volv­ing sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers who were charged in April 2023, af­ter a vi­ral video showed them al­leged­ly seiz­ing cash at a busi­ness in San­gre Grande.

DCP Suzette Mar­tin and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, which she head­ed at the time, were re­spon­si­ble for these two cas­es. She was mak­ing a name for her­self as a woman feared in the po­lice ser­vice and ad­mired by a pop­u­la­tion hun­gry for jus­tice. She brought us hope that the po­lice ser­vice would be sani­tised.

She seems well on the way to be­com­ing our next CoP, but one of the of­fi­cers who was cleared re­spond­ed that of­fi­cers did ‘every­thing to show trans­paren­cy and fair­ness’ dur­ing what he said was an of­fi­cial ex­er­cise to tar­get il­le­gal gam­bling.

‘It still amazes me that, with no ev­i­dence, we have all been charged and placed be­fore the courts, and 17 months lat­er no ev­i­dence has still not been dis­closed.’ This is in­deed se­ri­ous. The pub­lic needs to know who is cul­pa­ble and what con­se­quences would be met.

Since 2009, when CoP Ran­dolph Bur­roughs was charged with bribery and mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds, mech­a­nisms for han­dling seized goods were im­ple­ment­ed. How­ev­er, in 2017, an of­fi­cer was found with cash stacked in his desk draw­er.

Then af­ter the Drugs Sou Sou op­er­a­tions based at Kath­leen Warn­er Dri­ve in La Hor­quet­ta, $22 mil­lion seized was re­turned with­out au­tho­ri­sa­tion by of­fi­cers of the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion. Is this whole mat­ter swept un­der the car­pet? Next, an ACP was red-flagged by three fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions for de­posit­ing close to $2 mil­lion in var­i­ous ac­counts.

These events show we need bet­ter po­lice over­sight, more ro­bust in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions, and greater trans­paren­cy in law en­force­ment prac­tices. It is time cer­tain of­fi­cers de­clare their ac­counts to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the body cam­eras be manda­to­ry.

I sup­port MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to the dis­missal of charges against these po­lice of­fi­cers.