Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Four days af­ter he ap­plied for his first va­ca­tion leave since be­com­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith was giv­en the green light to pro­ceed for a month, where he plans to spend some time in Ire­land with his son, Gary Grif­fith III.

Grif­fith sought per­mis­sion to leave the coun­try in his ap­pli­ca­tion let­ter for leave to Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young via a let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 25, 2020.

The let­ter read: “I re­fer to Reg­u­la­tion 83 (2) of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, 2007 and hearti­ly ap­ply for 21 work­ing days’ va­ca­tion leave to cov­er the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2, 2020 to No­vem­ber 1, 2020 in­clu­sive. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od of my leave, I in­tend to trav­el to Ire­land ...”

Grif­fith al­so gave a con­tact num­ber and an email ad­dress of where he can be con­tact­ed whilst out of the coun­try.

Yes­ter­day, a ru­mour be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) had met and a de­ci­sion was tak­en to send Grif­fith on “ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.” But well-placed sources with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed that was false.

TTPS cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions head Fran­cis Joseph con­firmed that act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob will act as com­mis­sion­er from Fri­day.

Ja­cob is cur­rent­ly on leave and is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to work this week.

Via a re­lease yes­ter­day, the PSC said Grif­fith will be pro­ceed­ing on va­ca­tion leave from Oc­to­ber 2- No­vem­ber 1, 2020.

As a con­se­quence, it said Ja­cob will act in the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for the above men­tioned pe­ri­od.

When con­tact­ed last evening, Grif­fith said it was time for him to recharge.

“Weeks ago, I com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the PSC re­quest­ing same (va­ca­tion leave). Every week for the last two years, there has al­ways been an ur­gent na­tion­al is­sue that made it dif­fi­cult for me to leave,” Grif­fith said.

“Since No­vem­ber last year, from Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions to Christ­mas to Car­ni­val to cov­er cri­sis to the plans by el­e­ments to loot to Gen­er­al Elec­tions, I had to keep post­pon­ing. Eigh­teen hours a day, sev­en days a week for two years - yeah! Time for me to recharge.”

Grif­fith al­so said in his ab­sence he will not be “giv­ing up the ship (mean­ing the TTPS).”

“I would be very ac­tive dai­ly and will be look­ing close­ly at all high pro­file cas­es and will be en­sur­ing that the ball doesn’t drop.”