Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher will have to de­fend con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings over her fail­ure to swear in a po­lice re­cruit and al­low her to com­plete her train­ing.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Aviel Williams filed the ap­pli­ca­tion yes­ter­day and it was as­signed to High Court Judge Joan Charles. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Williams re­cent­ly filed a law­suit af­ter she was re­moved from the list of re­cruits at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my in St James with­out an ex­pla­na­tion.

Last Fri­day, Jus­tice Charles grant­ed Williams leave to pur­sue her ju­di­cial re­view case over her re­moval. The judge al­so grant­ed an in­junc­tion al­low­ing her to be sworn in as an of­fi­cer and com­plete her train­ing.

Af­ter the court or­der was served on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) le­gal de­part­ment, Williams re­turned to the acad­e­my this week to await in­struc­tions on her swear­ing-in and re­sump­tion of train­ing but re­ceived none.

“I have al­so, since re­ceiv­ing the or­der of the court, sat in the mess hall and seen my batch con­tin­u­ing with their train­ing and thus ad­vanc­ing ahead of me,” she said, in an at­tached af­fi­davit.

Through the con­tempt pro­ceed­ings, Williams is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and an or­der com­mit­ting Hare­wood-Christo­pher to prison for the al­leged breach of the court or­der.

The pro­ceed­ings are ex­pect­ed to come up for hear­ing on Mon­day.

Williams, a sin­gle moth­er, first ap­plied to join the TTPS in 2019.

In Ju­ly, she was giv­en a con­tract and al­lowed to be­gin train­ing af­ter com­plet­ing writ­ten, poly­graph and psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ments and drug, agili­ty, and med­ical tests.

Af­ter com­plet­ing her phys­i­cal and de­fen­sive tac­tics ex­am­i­na­tions ear­li­er this month, Williams and her fel­low re­cruits were told that those who were suc­cess­ful in aca­d­e­m­ic and po­lice skills as­pects of train­ing would be sworn in on Oc­to­ber 14.

How­ev­er, on that day, Williams was told that she would not be sworn in as ex­pect­ed as there was an is­sue with her file, which had to be re­viewed by Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

She was told to change out of uni­form and to pro­ceed on leave.

In her sub­stan­tive law­suit, Williams is claim­ing that the de­ci­sion was un­rea­son­able, ir­ra­tional and un­fair and her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached.

Williams is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams and Mi­rah Ram­rat­tan.