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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

PCA calls for disciplinary action against ACP Hackshaw

by

1648 days ago
20200822
PCA director David West.

PCA director David West.

 

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to com­mence dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings against As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Ir­win Hack­shaw as its in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of un­usu­al fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions nears com­ple­tion.

On March 9, 2020, the PCA be­gan an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to re­port­ed al­le­ga­tions of un­usu­al fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions in­volv­ing Hack­shaw. That in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed on Au­gust 6, 2020, and the PCA said in a state­ment yes­ter­day that it had re­ferred the ev­i­dence gath­ered, to­geth­er with a rec­om­men­da­tion for dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings to be in­sti­tut­ed, to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith.

Grif­fith re­spond­ed yes­ter­day say­ing, “It is my in­ten­tion to act up­on these rec­om­men­da­tions as soon as rea­son­ably pos­si­ble.” (See sto­ry be­low)

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the PCA said that “com­mence­ment of the rec­om­mend­ed dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings is es­pe­cial­ly ur­gent as Mr Hack­shaw be­gins of­fi­cial re­tire­ment from No­vem­ber 9, 2020 af­ter which the TTPS will not have the au­thor­i­ty to con­duct dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ings.”

It added, “The PCA is aware of Reg­u­la­tion 156(4) of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions 2007 (the PSR) which states that, “the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer shall hold an of­fice high­er than that of the of­fi­cer con­cerned. In the in­stant case, ACP Hack­shaw is the most se­nior of­fi­cer in the TTPS, ex­cept for the CoP. We hope that this is­sue can be re­solved so that the dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dure can com­mence.”

It al­so dis­closed that its team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors in­ter­viewed sev­er­al wit­ness­es, record­ed wit­ness state­ments and con­sid­ered doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence. 

The PCA dis­closed that Hack­shaw was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to ques­tions by way of a writ­ten state­ment, or, par­tic­i­pate in an in­ter­view con­duct­ed by PCA In­ves­ti­ga­tors with his at­tor­ney-at-law or any oth­er per­son­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive present.

How­ev­er, it added that Hack­shaw re­fused to ac­cept the let­ter in­form­ing him of this.

The PCA not­ed, how­ev­er, “The ev­i­dence gath­ered sup­ports the al­le­ga­tion that Mr Hack­shaw ac­cept­ed paid em­ploy­ment, or, un­der­took pri­vate work with­out ap­proval, in breach of Reg­u­la­tion 133(b) and in con­tra­ven­tion of Reg­u­la­tions 150(1); (2)(a); (c) and (d)(i) of the PSR.”

PCA di­rec­tor, David West added, “Giv­en the im­por­tance of strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty trust and con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment, the PCA calls for im­me­di­ate ac­tion by the TTPS in this mat­ter which con­cerns one of its se­nior of­fi­cers.”

In June the PCA made it clear that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of sus­pi­cious fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty at three banks in­volv­ing Hack­shaw was on­go­ing, how­ev­er, around that same time, the Po­lice Ser­vice an­nounced that the in­ves­tiga­tive file was sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

The dis­clo­sure was made by the CoP Grif­fith dur­ing the week­ly me­dia brief­ing that was held at the TTPS’ Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain on June 9.

On May 28, in a re­lease, the PCA said that up­on com­ple­tion of the PCA’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion, “the Au­thor­i­ty shall, where deemed nec­es­sary, take ac­tion in ac­cor­dance with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act.”


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