For­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) and at­tor­ney at law Mar­tin George be­lieves there still are many out­stand­ing ques­tions to be an­swered per­tain­ing to the ar­rest of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed over an al­leged in­volve­ment in the pro­cure­ment of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

The case against her was dis­con­tin­ued as the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) found that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to se­cure a con­vic­tion.

To­day, Mar­tin George told Guardian Me­dia the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s rep­u­ta­tion has been per­ma­nent­ly tar­nished.

He called for some ac­count­abil­i­ty for the man­ner in which her case was han­dled.

“When one looks at the en­tire sce­nario as to how un­fold­ed, there will be ques­tions in terms of, ‘Was there suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion?’ Not just for the ar­rest of the Com­mis­sion­er,” George points out, “but the man­ner in which it was car­ried out.”

“When you have some­thing like this play­ing out in the pub­lic space … You think of the pub­lic hu­mil­i­a­tion and the em­bar­rass­ment … It’s some­thing the Com­mis­sion­er could nev­er re­cov­er from, re­gard­less,” George stat­ed. "Even if she takes le­gal ac­tion and she is award­ed a cer­tain sum of mon­ey, that still can­not erase it.”

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the top cop’s in­volve­ment in the sniper ri­fles pur­chase was spear­head­ed by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Suzette Mar­tin.

And while the con­tract of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher comes to an end on May 14, 2025, there is no word on whether it will be ex­tend­ed.

George says the process to se­lect a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is too lengthy and cum­ber­some.

“Do you have some­one who you are groom­ing, and who is suit­able to step in­to the shoes … Who you can make an ap­point­ment in terms of a per­ma­nent com­mis­sion­er, as op­posed to just a stop-gap mea­sure where you let this con­tract run out and then you ap­point some­body to act in the po­si­tion,” he said, “while we con­duct search for a per­ma­nent com­mis­sion­er.”

DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin has been act­ing in the post of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice since Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher's sus­pen­sion at the end of Jan­u­ary this year.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der con­firmed hav­ing sep­a­rate meet­ings yes­ter­day, with Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Ben­jamin.

And Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) chair­man Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace has con­firmed that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher had not yet re­ceived for­mal no­ti­fi­ca­tion lift­ing her sus­pen­sion on Tues­day, but the let­ter could be de­liv­ered by Wednes­day morn­ing.