Top cop slams Express reporter

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith has slammed the Express newspaper and a specific reporter from that media house for continuously writing negative stories about him as head of the police service.

His condemnation of the Express and its reporter was first posted to his Facebook page and minutes later was sent to media houses as an official press release from the TTPS.

In the release, Griffith said he has noted that certain police officers and reporters were becoming desperate and also noted the "now boring attempt" by a reporter to discredit him via almost weekly negative articles aimed at the TTPS.

He then referenced a front page article in the Sunday Express, about a policeman being transferred. The CoP wishes to remind the public that the investigation in this matter, involves an alleged conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice, involving police officers and certain reporters, by attempting to influence a citizen from altering his witness statement, the release said.

No false and misleading front-page stories would alter that, the release added. The release claimed that one reporter from that newspaper, had written 23 negative articles on Griffith since he became police commissioner 18 months ago.

Griffith reminded that it is always the prerogative of the Commissioner of Police to transfer police officers, giving them the required period to effect the transfer. Police officers, he said, are transferred based on the specialised skills and expertise within the TTPS.

Griffith expressed surprise that a police officer being transferred would raise an issue of losing commuted allowance, giving the perception as if he feels he has an entitlement to same. It is this type of behaviour, Griffith pointed out, that he intends to remove from the service.

He confirmed there is an ongoing investigation into several police officers and reporters concerning a conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice, inclusive of bribing an informant to alter his story. The informant referred to is Cecil Skeete of Freedom Street, Cocorite, who is now deceased.

Skeete is said to have informed Griffith of certain police officers and reporters involved in an elaborate scheme to bring down Griffith. The Express published an article that Griffith had choked and threatened Skeete at the Four Roads Police Station in

June 2019. Newsday subsequently reported that Skeete swore to an affidavit fully denying the allegations as laid out in the Express' story.

There is nothing to verify that Skeete ever made those allegations, Griffith said in the press release. There is an entry into a station diary which Skeete never signed and of which he had no knowledge. The only time that allegations were raised, was in the Express article, coming from a third party.

As a result, there is now an investigation into the information supplied by Skeete who was shot dead outside his home on December 29. The release added that investigations are also ongoing into that murder, to determine if it was linked to those who attempted to bribe Skeete with $50,000 to alter his statement.

Skeete, the release stated, was killed days prior to him assisting police in a 'sting' operation whereby he was planning to meet with "them to have them exposed."