Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is back at the helm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), al­beit it may be for just a few days.

While up to 8 pm the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) had not pro­vid­ed ei­ther Hare­wood-Christo­pher or her at­tor­ney Pamela El­der, SC, with a let­ter lift­ing her sus­pen­sion, the PolSC’s at­tor­ney Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, said the de­ci­sion to do so was made pri­or to yes­ter­day’s court hear­ing.

The top cop re­gain­ing con­trol over the TTPS came hours af­ter High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand found that her sus­pen­sion was le­gal. He al­so or­dered that Hare­wood-Christo­pher pay the le­gal cost of the PolSC.

“I do not con­sid­er the de­fen­dant’s de­ci­sion to be ir­ra­tional, (13:57) un­rea­son­able, ul­tra-virus, or il­le­gal,” Sieuc­hand ruled, adding that the PolSC fol­lowed the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice, al­though it did not seek or re­ceive a re­sponse from Hare­wood-Christo­pher be­fore sus­pend­ing her.

In her first in­ter­view since her ar­rest in Jan­u­ary, Hare­wood-Christo­pher told the me­dia she felt vin­di­cat­ed.

“I thank God, I thank my at­tor­neys. I have been vin­di­cat­ed, which I ex­pect­ed. In my 43 years of ser­vice, I have nev­er been, there’s no al­le­ga­tions of any mis­con­duct, be it crim­i­nal or oth­er­wise. My ser­vice has al­ways been with in­tegri­ty. But oth­er than that, I re­serve any fur­ther com­ment at this time.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher spoke af­ter meet­ing with Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der at Tem­ple Court, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

She said the hand­ing over from Ben­jamin to her was “cor­dial.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was sus­pend­ed on Jan­u­ary 31, af­ter she was ar­rest­ed the day be­fore over al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct in the se­cur­ing of two sniper ri­fles and oth­er ac­ces­sories for the SSA. Hare­wood-Christo­pher spent two nights at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion be­fore she was re­leased from cus­tody.

The lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the mat­ter was Suzette Mar­tin.

Asked if there was any an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween her and Mar­tin, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said no.

“I be­lieve I’m a pro­fes­sion­al, and no, there’s no an­i­mos­i­ty. I don’t know if she has any an­i­mos­i­ty, but I have none.”

Asked if she felt that her ar­rest was part of a witch-hunt, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “No com­ments, I will not com­ment on that at this time.”

With her 62nd birth­day on Thurs­day bring­ing an end to her con­tract, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said she ex­pects her “heav­en­ly Fa­ther to take good care of me” when asked about a third and fi­nal ex­ten­sion of her con­tract.

She added, “What­ev­er God has in store for me, that is what will hap­pen.”

Ear­li­er, speak­ing with the me­dia out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, mo­ments af­ter her client re­turned to of­fice, El­der said the next step will be to ap­peal Sieuc­hand’s de­ci­sion and ini­ti­ate more le­gal ac­tion against the State for wrong­ful ar­rest.

“What were the grounds, be­cause it’s rather trou­bling that you would ar­rest, say you have enough grounds to sus­pect and then you take months in­ves­ti­gat­ing. Why wasn’t the in­ves­ti­ga­tion done be­fore? You know this say­ing, you put a cart be­fore the horse? So, we would be ad­vis­ing her to bring ac­tion against the po­lice of­fi­cers who ar­rest­ed her and who were re­spon­si­ble for her ar­rest,” El­der said.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s re­turn to of­fice comes days af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Roger Gas­pard found there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to se­cure a con­vic­tion.

While the top cop is gear­ing up for le­gal war, in­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, there was peace and calm, as she con­duct­ed her­self as a re­spect­ed guest.

El­der said her client did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn to her of­fice but wait­ed for for­mer act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin to in­vite her in. Al­though dis­ap­point­ed by Sieuc­hand’s de­ci­sion, El­der said she did not let that im­pact her rein­tro­duc­tion to the reins of the TTPS.

“She was very hum­ble. She wait­ed un­til he (Ben­jamin) ar­rived. She didn’t just walk in­to the of­fice; she wait­ed to be in­vit­ed in­to the con­fer­ence room,” El­der said.

El­der added: “She was a bit dis­ap­point­ed with the de­ci­sion this morn­ing, but she re­mained very, very hap­py that this bur­den, this hor­ror she had been liv­ing un­der since Jan­u­ary had been lift­ed.”