Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than a week af­ter charges of dan­ger­ous dri­ving were dis­con­tin­ued against DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin, all par­ties con­tin­ue to main­tain si­lence on the mat­ter.

In April 2023, a 14-year-old boy was in­jured when a car al­leged­ly dri­ven by Mar­tin who was at the time a Snr Supt, col­lid­ed with him along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in San Juan.

Mar­tin was lat­er charged by sum­mons for dan­ger­ous dri­ving. How­ev­er, the mat­ter was even­tu­al­ly dis­con­tin­ued on De­cem­ber 18, when Gas­pard, de­scribed the ev­i­dence for dan­ger­ous dri­ving as be­ing “ex­treme­ly ten­u­ous,” af­ter re­view­ing.

He not­ed that while his of­fice orig­i­nal­ly ad­vised the charge to be laid, a re-eval­u­a­tion of the ev­i­dence led to his de­ci­sion to file a no­tice of dis­con­tin­u­ance.

In the lat­est de­vel­op­ment, le­gal ac­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by the moth­er of the teenag­er who was in­jured.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter on Christ­mas Day, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the woman claimed the fam­i­ly was not con­sult­ed, nor their views con­sid­ered be­fore the charges were dropped.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Fri­day morn­ing, Mar­tin ad­vised this re­porter to call her at 2 pm that af­ter­noon. At 2 pm she asked to be con­tact­ed at 4 pm as her en­gage­ment was still on­go­ing. Ques­tions were then sent to Mar­tin via What­sApp but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to Fri­day evening.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought com­ment from DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, who re­spond­ed via What­sApp not­ing that he did not have “any­thing to add,” to the lat­est de­vel­op­ment.

The in­ci­dent was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), who made rec­om­men­da­tions to Gas­pard for charges to be laid.

A spokesper­son for the PCA de­clined to com­ment on whether they agreed with the de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the charges against Mar­tin, or whether they were con­cerned that the de­vel­op­ment would im­pact the morale of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Re­fer­ring to the is­suance of a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter against the DPP’s of­fice, the spokesper­son said the au­thor­i­ty could not pro­vide “spe­cif­ic de­tails or com­ments,” at this time.

Asked if the PCA was still con­fi­dent in their abil­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct and wrong­do­ing with­in the TTPS giv­en this re­cent de­vel­op­ment, the spokesper­son said they would con­tin­ue to work to­wards their goals.

“The PCA has been ef­fec­tive­ly ful­fill­ing its man­date and we trust that our suc­cess­es in this re­gard will lead to greater ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son said he was un­aware of any dis­con­tent or dis­sat­is­fac­tion among of­fi­cers about the dis­con­tin­u­ance of the charges against Mar­tin.

“The is­sue has had no im­pact on the mem­ber­ship at this point in time from all in­di­ca­tors,” Dick­son said.

Fol­low­ing a de­bate in the Low­er House over Mar­tin’s ap­point­ment as DCP in March, Dick­son sug­gest­ed that the gov­ern­ment re­view the se­lec­tion process as de­bates in Par­lia­ment could af­fect of­fi­cers’ rep­u­ta­tions.

“You are now tak­ing them through the scruti­ny of the Par­lia­ment, and peo­ple say any­thing which could be in­ter­pret­ed as neg­a­tive and leave a sour taste in peo­ple's mouths.

“Those are things that could de­ter oth­er would-be can­di­dates from even en­ter­ing the process,” Dick­son said in March.