Fifteen months after former Police Commissioner Edvin Martin announced the setting up of a 3-member committee to investigate allegations of rampant sexual abuse of female officers by senior members of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF), no report has apparently been handed in.
Several senior members of the force told THE NEW TODAY that they have not heard anything about the work of the committee and doubted whether any meeting was held.
When the issue was raised last Friday at a Press Conference with acting Commissioner of Police Don Mc Kenzie, he admitted that he had not seen any report from the committee.
“I would have a conversation … find out what progress has been made. It’s quite possible significant progress has been made,” he said.
According to Commissioner McKenzie, he would have to check with “the most senior woman Police officer to find out what was done, to find out what progress (was made).”
He also admitted that Martin did not brief him on the issue of the committee and its work on demitting office earlier in the year.
“What I do know is there is an ongoing effort to address any issues that falls within the realms of suspicion of sexual harassment of females and whenever we smell or we suspect that there is a case – even outside of the boundaries of formal disciplinary action, we take action so we are quite clear when it comes to that,” he said.
“If that practice did exist within the very recent, I don’t think that is something that has raised its head because as a force we have a policy. When we find cases that warrants disciplinary action we have charged persons accordingly. It’s an issue – wherever we see evidence we aggressively address it,” he added.
A top officer who spoke to THE NEW TODAY after the press briefing said he did not expect much to happen as most of the members of the Police High Command are alledgedly engaged in “sexual relationship” with several female officers within the force.
He recalled that one female officer who wrote former Commissioner Winston James to complaint of being raped by a Superintendent of Police recommended in the letter that the issue of sexual abuse of female officers should become part of the curriculum at the level of the Training School.
He said the female officer who has since resigned from RGPF also suggested that the issue of sexual molestation on the job should also be taught to officers in police stations but it was never implemented.
“They won’t do it because too many of them are doing that dam thing (sexual molestation of female officers),” he said.
In April 2022, a female police officer sent an anonymous letter to THE NEW TODAY in which she exposed a number of high-ranking officers including some within the Police High Command of engaging in the dirty practice of sexual abuse of female officers.
She said that a lot of female officers are fearful of speaking out on the wrongs in the force out of a concern that they might be victimised by their own superiors.
She identified by name the member of the High Command who was harassing female officers almost on a daily basis by trying to lure them with offers of lunch and dinner, as well as spending time with him at some of the top hotels in the south of the island.
THE NEW TODAY was told that Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) John Charles had raised the issue on several occasions with Martin as way back as 2019 but nothing was done about it.