Senior police officer back on the job after being cleared of information leak charge

By Aaron Humes: Despite going “a bit too far” in his view, the Commissioner of Police Chester Williams said he had no other option but to take back a friend who had strayed into the Police Department in a different role.

The high-ranking officer, who has been named elsewhere, was formerly head of the old Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) and worked in intelligence. He was accused of, allegedly, revealing sensitive information from one of his informants to someone allegedly interested in it.

That resulted in his interdiction, but it was recently lifted by the Security Services Commission and he was reinstated in a different post.

The Commissioner reiterated that “When it comes to the discipline of senior officers, and when I say senior officers, I mean from an inspector and above, that is not within the purview of the Commissioner of Police; that falls with the Security Services Commission. As the Commissioner of Police, I can discipline and dismiss police officers from constable to sergeant but when it comes to senior officers, it goes to the Services Commission and they are the ones who, after having viewed or reviewed evidence if there is any, would come to that termination if a trial is conducted.”

He went on to state that in the case of the officer in question, the person he was communicating with declined at all to cooperate with their investigation, and the officer had detailed to the Commissioner the technique he used in order to gain favour with the subject.

Following the Commission’s decision, the Commissioner said, “If the Services Commission lifts the interdiction and says that the man is to return to work, I have no legal authority to say to the Commission, ‘I’m not taking you back at work.’ If not, he can go to the court and make an application for an Order of Mandamus against me. I do not want to be a Commissioner who the court has to order to do what is expected of me to do as a Commissioner.”

Williams flatly denied using any of his ‘influence’ to help the accused officer, stating that he has no control over the decisions of the Commission in this regard. As he pointed out, with all that was before it, the Commission could not find anything under the law that would indict the officer, even if as he agreed the officer went too far and got into hot water.

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