Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin says the po­lice ser­vice can­not be held ac­count­able for the even­tu­al out­come of cas­es af­ter they are heard in court.

Re­spond­ing to the de­ci­sion by High Court Mas­ter Kim­i­tra Gray last week to dis­miss charges against for­mer self-con­fessed spy, Pas­tor Ian Brown; se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor Suzanne Por­tel-Grif­fith; and po­lice­man Sher­win Wal­dron in mat­ters re­lat­ed to their con­duct at the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), Ben­jamin de­fend­ed his of­fi­cers, as he said they had done their part in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing the trio.

He al­so re­as­sured the pub­lic that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has and will con­tin­ue to do due dili­gence in any and all in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­fore it.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said of­fi­cers had no con­trol over the court and what is de­cid­ed as in­ves­ti­ga­tions pro­gressed, and can­not be held ac­count­able for how the mat­ter end­ed.

“The TTPS, we did all that we need­ed to be done in this mat­ter. And, there­fore, this mat­ter is present­ly en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the DPP’s of­fice and we would await any fur­ther ad­vice in the mat­ter com­ing from the DPP’s of­fice but the TTPS...let me make it em­phat­i­cal­ly clear that we did all that we need­ed to do in this mat­ter.”

The trio was charged last May with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, fol­low­ing the al­leged trans­fer of four pro­hib­it­ed TTPS-owned firearms to the SSA.

The charges were dis­missed af­ter pros­e­cu­tors in the mat­ter failed to com­ply with court pro­ce­dures.

Re­gard­ing the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing sus­pend­ed Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Christo­pher-Hare­wood, Ben­jamin said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were com­ply­ing with “fur­ther ad­vice that was giv­en to us,” by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

He con­firmed, “We are work­ing on that as we speak and (when) we are fin­ished, we will re­turn to the DPP to get fur­ther ad­vice on the mat­ter.”