Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville

@guardian.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher says that while life has con­tin­ued for her af­ter her ar­rest and de­par­ture from the TTPS, she is trust­ing God to bring jus­tice against those who she said “con­spired to end her ca­reer.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed at her of­fice at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port of Spain, on Jan­u­ary 30, days be­fore the two-year an­niver­sary of her ap­point­ment as com­mis­sion­er.

She was ar­rest­ed as part of crim­i­nal en­quiries in­to the unau­tho­rised trans­fer of two AX-2 bolt-ac­tion sniper ri­fles from the TTPS to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was even­tu­al­ly re­leased with­out any charges be­ing laid on Feb­ru­ary 1, and fur­ther cleared of any wrong­do­ing on May 9, when Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC, de­cid­ed there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to charge her with any crim­i­nal of­fence.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp on Thurs­day about her life af­ter leav­ing pub­lic of­fice, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she re­mained com­mit­ted to her faith.

With­out re­fer­ring to any­one in par­tic­u­lar, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she trust­ed in God for jus­tice against those she de­scribed as “con­spir­a­tors” against her.

“It is in God that I find my com­fort, and on whom I re­ly for jus­tice against those who con­spired to dam­age my rep­u­ta­tion and bring a pre­ma­ture end to my ca­reer. God nev­er fails.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said that while she knew it was in­evitable that she would one day leave the TTPS, she did not ex­pect her de­par­ture to oc­cur un­der such tur­bu­lent cir­cum­stances.

“Life con­tin­ues, and noth­ing is per­ma­nent, not even a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.

“I lived know­ing that I will one day re­turn to civil­ian life. What I didn’t an­tic­i­pate were the cir­cum­stances that pre­cip­i­tat­ed my ex­it.

“I am grate­ful, how­ev­er, that I al­ways be­lieved that I serve a God who is big­ger than any­thing I can imag­ine, who him­self en­dured much more ad­ver­si­ty than I ever will, but who is able to de­liv­er me to the ut­ter­most.”

De­spite this, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she sought refuge in her faith as a Chris­t­ian.

Pitt on Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest: It could have been done bet­ter

Ear­li­er this month, Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with the pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, ASP Ish­mael Pitt, who com­ment­ed on the im­pact of Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest on the rank and file of the TTPS.

Pitt said while the ar­rest and en­quiry “could have been man­aged bet­ter,” such in­ci­dents in­volv­ing serv­ing se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers would al­ways stir con­cern and un­ease.

“But from an as­so­ci­a­tion per­spec­tive, we will al­ways cham­pi­on that these in­ves­ti­ga­tions are done in a par­tic­u­lar way so as not to de­mean or bring in­to dis­re­pute the char­ac­ters of our of­fi­cers.”

As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Gideon Pitt said sit­u­a­tions where a serv­ing com­mis­sion­er was ar­rest­ed were par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing, as while it could show pro­fes­sion­al­ism and im­par­tial­i­ty on the part of the po­lice, it could al­so raise con­cerns about in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges.

“It could im­pact the or­gan­i­sa­tion neg­a­tive­ly, on the oth­er hand it could im­pact the or­gan­i­sa­tion in a way where it of­fers trans­paren­cy to show that we have no is­sue in terms of treat­ing with our own.

“Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, it’s al­ways damn if you do, damn if you don’t.”

Pitt said once an of­fi­cer was in­ves­ti­gat­ed and cleared of any wrong­do­ing, that of­fi­cer should be al­lowed to re­turn to their du­ties with­out any ques­tions over com­pe­tence and in­tegri­ty.