Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has raised con­cerns over a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) pol­i­cy of pro­mot­ing of­fi­cers while they are sus­pend­ed for be­ing ac­cused of com­mit­ting crim­i­nal of­fences. 

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad high­light­ed the pol­i­cy yes­ter­day as he was called up­on to de­ter­mine a law­suit from a cor­po­ral, who claimed he was by­passed for pro­mo­tion while on sus­pen­sion with a group of col­leagues for al­leged­ly set­ting a de­tainee on fire. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad de­clined to rule on the case as he not­ed that Cpl Roger Reid was retroac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed while the case was await­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion. 

While he not­ed that the prac­tice is law­ful as the of­fi­cers are to be pre­sumed in­no­cent un­til the charges are de­ter­mined, he said that in prac­tice, it af­fects pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS. 

“When trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS seem to be at a record low, there is need to be mind­ful that pro­mo­tion in the face of a pend­ing crim­i­nal charge, par­tic­u­lar­ly one tied to mis­use of pub­lic au­thor­i­ty, may have un­in­tend­ed in­sti­tu­tion­al con­se­quences,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

“The re­al dan­ger, there­fore, is not the in­di­vid­ual of­fi­cer’s case, but it is the lev­el of in­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nalling which re­sults when the pub­lic sees an of­fi­cer rise in rank while un­der the cloud of a crim­i­nal charge for mis­be­hav­iour in a pub­lic of­fice,” he added. 

He al­so sug­gest­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers should not be op­posed to the sug­ges­tion, as they could be im­me­di­ate­ly retroac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed in the event they are even­tu­al­ly cleared of any wrong­do­ing.  

In Ju­ly 2014, Reid and six of his col­leagues were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. 

The charge re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent in which a de­tainee, at the po­lice sta­tion they were as­signed to, claimed he was doused with methy­lat­ed spir­it and set on fire.  

Al­though Reid and his col­leagues were sus­pend­ed and their salaries in­ter­dict­ed, he suc­cess­ful­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise. 

He filed the law­suit af­ter there was a de­lay in pro­mot­ing him. In 2024, he re­tired af­ter turn­ing 55 years old. 

Last Oc­to­ber, the TTPS in­formed the court that Reid had been retroac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed with ef­fect from June 2017, and he would re­ceive his salary ar­rears for the pe­ri­od. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the case was no longer nec­es­sary based on the con­ces­sion, which es­sen­tial­ly grant­ed Reid the re­lief he sought. 

He al­so not­ed that as­pects of Reid’s case al­leg­ing that his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached should not be con­sid­ered based on the out­come of the ju­di­cial re­view el­e­ments of his case.