Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for To­co/San­gre Grande Wayne Sturge is ac­cus­ing Gary Grif­fith of try­ing to seek favour from Stu­art Young so he can get an­oth­er term as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice (CoP).

But in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Grif­fith says Sturge is clear­ly a “bush lawyer” and be­low his stan­dards.

Speak­ing at a UNC Pave­ment Meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Thurs­day, Sturge took aim at Grif­fith, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader.

“All of a sud­den, he jump out him­self and wants to come around me, well I want to ad­dress him tonight,” he de­clared to the crowd.

“He got a cor­beau sweat as po­lice com­mis­sion­er, one minute he wants to cosy up un­der Kam­la, next minute he wants to cosy up un­der Row­ley, now Row­ley gone, he wants to cosy up un­der Stu­art to serve the in­ter­est of the one per cent.”

Grif­fith re­cent­ly wished Young, the prime min­is­ter des­gi­nate, well and praised him for how he ran the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. The NTA leader al­so called for the pub­lic to stop de­mon­is­ing Young’s for­mer step­daugh­ter, who was charged with pos­ses­sion of drugs and guns in 2018, and said he was a rel­a­tive of the woman.

How­ev­er, Sturge ques­tioned where that com­pas­sion from Grif­fith was for peo­ple of a dif­fer­ent skin colour. He said it is clear Grif­fith is again au­di­tion­ing to be the top cop.

“Gary has lined up once again be­cause Row­ley gone or go­ing, if that is re­al. Hop­ing to get a cor­beau sweat again with Stu­art, hop­ing again he could be judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er when the Gov­ern­ment sets up the youth to fail,” Sturge claimed.

Sturge said Grif­fith is a “proven fail­ure” and crit­i­cised him for tak­ing cred­it as CoP for a low mur­der rate dur­ing COVID-19 lock­down pe­ri­od.

The at­tor­ney claimed Grif­fith is again ea­ger to lead the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) so that he could dis­sem­i­nate jus­tice in a bi­ased man­ner.

Sturge claimed Grif­fith pro­tect­ed a cer­tain so­cio-eco­nom­ic class dur­ing COVID reg­u­la­tions, while com­ing down hard on oth­ers who live in so-called hot spots. He said while some peo­ple were hav­ing un­in­ter­rupt­ed COVID par­ties in Bay­side Tow­ers, the then Grif­fith-led TTPS had their guns trained on young peo­ple bathing in the sea near Sea Lots.

“So, he (Grif­fith) can make a video with them say­ing ‘sor­ry Gary’ so he can feed his ego,” Sturge claimed.

Sturge al­so took is­sue with Grif­fith ac­cus­ing him of mak­ing a ca­reer by rush­ing to rep­re­sent known crim­i­nals in court and en­sur­ing they are set free.

“That is so disin­gen­u­ous. I do not make the de­ci­sion to let go any­body, I am a lawyer, I rep­re­sent peo­ple charged with of­fences. Some­times they are in­no­cent, some­times things are fab­ri­cat­ed, some­times po­lice set them up, be­cause the po­lice ser­vice has bad peo­ple, the po­lice ser­vice set­ting up one gang against an­oth­er,” Sturge ar­gued.

He said it is his du­ty as a lawyer to en­sure due process and the pro­tec­tion of law are up­held.

“He is a los­er, he is a fail­ure. If he was se­ri­ous why does he not find out why the cas­es falling down in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem? There is some­thing called due process and pro­tec­tion of the law and that is what a lawyer is for. The po­lice lock you up and we have to make sure the sys­tem works so the in­no­cent are not wrong­ful­ly im­pris­oned,” Sturge said.

But in re­sponse, Grif­fith said un­like Sturge, he is not des­per­ate for a job.

“I have a lot of stan­dards for my­self. I was fired as a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice be­cause I stood firm to my oath in of­fice. I would nev­er be some­body as an at­tor­ney who will go out of my way to rep­re­sent every sin­gle ma­jor gang leader in this coun­try to en­sure they go out on bail af­ter be­ing charged for mur­der, kid­nap­ping, griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and il­le­gal weapons. The stan­dards of cer­tain politi­cians would be dif­fer­ent from mine, so I think Wayne Sturge should un­der­stand he’s not in my cat­e­go­ry as it comes to ethics,” Grif­fith said.

He said the at­ti­tude shown by Sturge is ex­act­ly why the UNC is in Op­po­si­tion and des­tined to re­main there, adding the UNC on­ly un­der­stands a cul­ture of di­vi­sion and mud­sling­ing.

Re­spond­ing to Sturge’s crit­i­cisms over his con­duct as CoP dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Grif­fith said, “This man has to be bush lawyer, he prob­a­bly bought his de­gree at PriceS­mart if he doesn’t know that un­der the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions un­der COVID, the po­lice had no au­thor­i­ty to in­ter­vene with any­thing that was hap­pen­ing with any­one at their homes, but peo­ple were not al­lowed to go on the beach or con­verge in groups of five.”