Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

The for­mer head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice To­taram Dookhie is ac­cus­ing for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith of abuse of pow­er and ex­ert­ing un­due in­flu­ence in sev­er­al high-pro­file in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing cur­rent and for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, as well as se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers.

Dookhie made the claims in a le­gal suit filed on Fri­day in the High Court against the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Guardian Me­dia has ob­tained a copy of the le­gal doc­u­ments in which the for­mer As­sis­tant CoP ac­cus­es Grif­fith, who served as top cop from Au­gust 2018 to Au­gust 2021, of pun­ish­ing him un­fair­ly be­cause “he re­fused to al­low him­self to be un­du­ly in­flu­enced and ma­nip­u­lat­ed by him (Grif­fith) in the con­duct of the crim­i­nal probes.

“The Com­mis­sion­er used his pow­ers for the ul­te­ri­or mo­tive and im­prop­er pur­pose of ma­nip­u­lat­ing, stalling, frus­trat­ing and com­pro­mis­ing these po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“To date, noth­ing has come of these in­ves­ti­ga­tions de­spite the lapse of many, many years. It is a grave dis­cred­it to the in­de­pen­dence of the TTPS. It has caused rep­u­ta­tion­al harm and erod­ed pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence.

“The mis­use and abuse of po­lice pow­er by the Com­mis­sion­er, his ser­vants and agents have breached my right to pro­tec­tion of the law,” Dookhie added in his af­fi­davit.

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer As­sis­tant CoP and PSB head, he was in­struct­ed by Grif­fith to list all the in­ves­ti­ga­tions he was work­ing on and to sub­mit the list to him.

De­spite se­ri­ous con­cerns, he said he fol­lowed the or­ders but was still sub­ject­ed to vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

“At that time there was a re­struc­tur­ing process tak­ing place in the TTPS and my name was pub­lished on the TTPS web­site to lead the White-Col­lar Crime Unit. On that date, my name was re­moved as head of the White-Col­lar Crime Unit and re­placed with ACP William Nurse.

“On Mon­day 18th No­vem­ber 2019, I was again sum­moned to CoP Mr Grif­fith’s of­fice … where I met Mr Grif­fith and DCP Baldeo. CoP Mr Grif­fith hand­ed me a signed mem­o­ran­dum dat­ed 18th No­vem­ber 2019 cap­tioned, “Re­as­sign­ment of in­ves­ti­ga­tions”. He was smil­ing and said, “Take that!” This memo was copied to the DPP (Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions) Roger Gas­pard.”

He said the memo con­tained in­struc­tions for him to hand over by 9 am the next day in­ves­tiga­tive files on sev­er­al high-pro­file mat­ters, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing and fraud­u­lent con­ver­sion in­volv­ing then Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is; al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in­volv­ing then Gov­ern­ment MP Dar­ryl Smith; al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and mon­ey laun­der­ing in­volv­ing ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw and al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in­volv­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Wen­dell Lu­cas.

In the Robin­son-Reg­is mat­ter, Dookhie claimed the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were “al­most 99 per cent com­plete” and that he had planned to vis­it the DPP one fi­nal time with a view to lay­ing crim­i­nal charges.

“CoP Mr Grif­fith was well aware of this. Since this file was tak­en away from me, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that should have been com­plet­ed with a fi­nal vis­it to the DPP has sim­ply gone dead. I have not heard any­thing fur­ther about the mat­ter and no charges have been pro­ferred.”

In the Dar­ryl Smith mat­ter Dookhie al­so said: “Once the file was re­as­signed from me, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion went dead.”

He al­so high­light­ed a case in­volv­ing for­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the late Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, sug­gest­ing that Grif­fith was con­cerned that iy “could bring down the gov­ern­ment” and that he had to “deal with the peo­ple above him” who were wor­ried about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I told him that that was not my con­cern and that my on­ly con­cern was to con­duct an in­de­pen­dent and prop­er po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and act in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

“He then shout­ed to me, “You lock up MAR­LENE and did not in­form me be­fore the ar­rest and the me­dia was call­ing me af­ter the ar­rest”. He (Grif­fith) fur­ther told me that, “you are a law un­to your­self” and “just as I gave you in­ves­ti­ga­tions, I will take it back”.

The 63-old Dookhie, who re­tired from the TTPS in Sep­tem­ber 2021, is claim­ing he was vic­timised for tak­ing a stand and want­i­ng to en­sure the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were be­ing con­duct­ed trans­par­ent­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly.

He said in June 2020, he was sud­den­ly pre­sent­ed with three al­le­ga­tions of breach­es of in­ter­nal ser­vice dis­ci­pline against him.

In Ju­ly 2020, he said he was ar­rest­ed in front of his two daugh­ters—which he said trau­ma­tised both him and his fam­i­ly.

“Al­though CoP Mr Grif­fith des­per­ate­ly tried for around 21 months to pros­e­cute and dis­cred­it my good name, no crim­i­nal or dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters were ini­ti­at­ed against me, nor are there any neg­a­tive find­ings against me.

“De­spite hav­ing re­tired in Sep­tem­ber 2021 I did not re­ceive any re­tire­ment ben­e­fits such as pen­sion or gra­tu­ity un­til Feb­ru­ary 2023. I was forced to use my sav­ings and was bare­ly able to meet my ex­pens­es. I had to bor­row mon­ey from friends and rel­a­tives to see about my fam­i­ly and my med­ical bills. I there­fore could not af­ford to re­tain an at­tor­ney to file this claim on my be­half. Apart from my fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, I had to take time to see about my psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al well-be­ing. The lev­el of frus­tra­tion and de­pres­sion was and is in­de­scrib­able,” said Dookhie, who is rep­re­sent­ed by For­tis Cham­bers.

Dookhie is seek­ing le­gal costs and dam­ages, in­clud­ing spe­cial, ex­em­plary and vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages for the al­leged breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Grif­fith and Robin­son-Reg­is ques­tion tim­ing of law­suit

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse last night both Grif­fith and Robin­son Reg­is ques­tioned the tim­ing of the law­suit filed by the re­tired As­sis­tant CoP.

“No­tice this man left of­fice three years ago and he nev­er saw fit un­til now—a month be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. No­tice the tim­ing and who his at­tor­neys are and let the coun­try judge for it­self,” said Grif­fith, who is lead­ing his Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance in­to the April 28 poll.

He al­so de­scribed the claims against him as “to­tal ig­no­rance”, adding that “this man was to­tal­ly, to­tal­ly un­fit for of­fice.

“In sev­er­al in­stances, we re­alised this man re­fused to ad­here to the chain of com­mand. Every sin­gle thing, every sin­gle ac­cu­sa­tion there, we chal­lenge him to prove it. He can’t be­cause it’s not true. He has been the down­fall of his own self. He felt he was a law on to him­self.. … This man was do­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and was in the process of ar­rest­ing a min­is­ter and said he did not need to in­form the Com­mis­sion­er.”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the le­gal ac­tion, Robin­son-Reg­is, who is the new­ly-ap­point­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in the one week old Stu­art Young ad­min­is­tra­tion, said in a writ­ten re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia: “This is such a trav­es­ty, as it comes af­ter the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has made spu­ri­ous state­ments about me in this re­gard on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form!!!

“You would see that he re­tired since 2021 and wait­ed four years (three and a half years) to sue?” she added.