Griffith threatens to sue media house, social media posters for defamation

POLICE Commissioner Gary Griffith has fired off a series of pre-action protocol letters for defamation against a media house and two people who posted on social media.

On October 30, Griffith’s attorneys sent letters to the Trinidad Express newspaper and two citizens: Mark John Hamel-Smith and Kenlee Ramoutar, who is said to be a security officer.

Attorney Joel Roper, in the letter to One Caribbean Media, the parent company of the Express, complained of defamatory articles against Griffith, in particular a series relating to the issuing of firearm user's licences to several people.

Roper said the publications insinuated that the commissioner was dishonest, facilitated criminality by supplying criminal offenders with licences and was biased in favour of donors to the police service.

He said such false inferences suggested Griifth was unreliable and incompetent. Roper said there was no truth to the allegations and the newspaper failed to provide evidence to support the claims.

The attorney accused the media house and the reporter who wrote the stories of continuously stirring deliberate and false statements against the commissioner with a view to discredit him.

“This malice is obviated by the relentless negative attacks on the CoP since his assumption of duty in his capacity, wherein approximately 44 articles portraying her malice have been published by your newspaper,” the letter said.

Roper said even after Griffith clarified the position on an allegation that someone with a criminal charge had been granted a firearms licence, the newspaper, in response, published totally erroneous, false and misleading information to give the impression that he was not being truthful.

The newspaper was also criticised for publishing internal communication between high-level officers of the public service.

Griffith is demanding a written apology, a retraction of the articles and for the newspaper to immediately stop making similar malicious and slanderous remarks about him.

In his letter to Hamel-Smith, of Bay Road, St James, the attorney said nothing in the comment he made on the Trinidad Express’s Facebook page, about an article on the police probe of the Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) operation was factual, but was baseless, unfounded and untruthful.

In his comment, Hamel-Smith spoke of a “hit” on someone.

Police went to Hamel-Smith’s home and according to the letter, he said he was not personally aware of any information on a “hit” by the commissioner and that he regretted his post.

However, Roper pointed out that although warned of the repercussions of posting false information, he still has not removed his comment from the newspaper’s Facebook page.

He said Griffith was willing to settle the matter amicably.

In the third letter, Roper told Ramoutar, who commented on an article on the Trinidad Guardian’s Facebook page related to a story on the same DSS investigation, his statements were a direct personal attack on Griffith.

The media house and the two posters were given seven days to acknowledge receipt of the letters and 14 days to respond, otherwise Griffith will take legal action against them.