Griffith Continues to Slam Defence Attorneys

POLICE Commissioner Gary Griffith says he has now started “to rumble” regarding the behaviour of some criminal attorneys.

His latest statement comes after defence attorney Fareed Ali said Griffith’s comments had left a toxic taste in the mouth of the legal fraternity.

It all started when Griffith slammed Se­nior Mag­is­trate Aiden Stroude who had chas­tised a po­lice of­fi­cer who came to court unprepared to present a sum­ma­ry of the ev­i­dence and the crim­i­nal record his­to­ry of an al­leged of­fend­er.

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This meant the court could not prop­er­ly ad­dress the suit­abil­i­ty of the accused man for bail. The mat­ter was sub­se­quent­ly ad­journed and the accused was re­mand­ed to prison overnight un­til the crim­i­nal record was avail­able.

Ali then said with the ad­vent of the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules which gov­erns ju­di­cial pro­ce­dure in a court of law that a civil­ian charged for a crim­i­nal of­fence must be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­ti­tled to a “prompt hear­ing” be­fore a court of law.

He added that every in­di­vid­ual charged be­fore a court has a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to bail.

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Ali said, “There­fore, a court of law must not de­ny any civil­ian his right to lib­er­ty ex­cept by due process of law.

“Mag­is­trate Stroude was cor­rect in law as he was em­pha­sis­ing what was re­quired for the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and the up­hold­ing of the rule of law when he un­der­lined the in­com­pe­tence of the po­lice of­fi­cer on the day in ques­tion.”

He said, “The TTPS must recog­nise that its func­tion with­in the Con­sti­tu­tion of TT is es­sen­tial­ly an ex­ec­u­tive one where they are to ful­fil the re­quire­ments of in­ves­tiga­tive work on would-be crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and to charge if the law al­lows.

“The TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion must pro­vide sup­port­ing ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate a charge. Gary Grif­fith seems to be un­aware of the strict func­tions of the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

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Ali also said recent comments by the Commissioner have left a toxic taste in the mouth of the legal fraternity.

Griffith said some attorneys were assisting criminals in their activities.

In a statement on Saturday, Griffith said he had no intention of just shutting up.

He said, “The general consensus of a few attorneys is for the Commissioner to ‘just shut up,’ say nothing and do nothing. It is actually comical that these very few attorneys have glossed over my statements in all of which I recognise the legal right to bail, yet amazingly they continue to neglect this.

“My words have been skewed on each occasion. However, I will again repeat for these ‘criminal lawyers,’ that judicial officers must give consideration to the seriousness of the offences being alleged and the other factors as set out in the law. I am only restating the law as it is.”

Griffith said, “This is also why they have issues with police, our job is to arrest those who they defend. There are criminal lawyers and there are lawyer criminals, and I will not apologise for being the catalyst of change or calling out nonsense when I see it. Interestingly enough, these same attorneys utilise the very same channels to condemn my keeping the public informed of their rights to be protected as citizens.”

He added, “My oath and duty are to my God and country. I have a nation and law-abiding citizens to defend. The job of others is to defend those who commit violent crime. So I expect them to bray louder as I have only now started to rumble.”