Griffith: Police court attendance better since I took over

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith - FILE PHOTO
Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith - FILE PHOTO

POLICE Commissioner Gary Griffith says the decision to drop disciplinary charges against a police officer who missed court eight times, leading to a charge of a death by dangerous driving being dropped, was made long before he became top cop.

In a statement on his official Facebook page, Griffith said he wanted to “share the facts” relating to a judicial review claim of a Freeport housewife whose husband was killed in a head-on collision in Manzanilla in 2011.

Maureen Dilchan Maharajh has received the permission of the court to challenge a decision to irrationally end disciplinary action against the officer in charge of the investigation into her husband’s death. She wants it reinstated.

Griffith said the file dealt with a matter from 2011, and the decision to drop the disciplinary charges was made "six years ago, long before I became Commissioner of Police.”

He said when he took office in 2018, one of the things he noticed was the number of policemen who failed to attend court for one reason or the other. Griffith said he has since put specific policies in place to mitigate the problem.

“And, I am pleased to say there has been an 80 per cent overall improvement in police officers attending court, with some divisions recording an over 90 per cent improvement.”

In her lawsuit, Maharajh said she was “most appalled’ that officers continued to refuse to attend court, referring to a Newsday report on the issue.

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