COMMISSIONER of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) Terrence Williams said while that body is not above critique, it is affronted by what he says are untrue claims.

“I know that there are criticisms and one would expect that any public body would be open to criticism but what we have not been pleased about is where criticisms have just not been true. Take the example of disarming police officers at the scene which is just not true,” the INDECOM boss told editors and reporters while appearing at the weekly Monday Exchange forum of the newspaper last week.

He however noted that the furore over the activities of the office within the ranks of the security forces could be caused by the novelty.

“We understand that for the police it is a new and unusual thing to have an independent body which is as active as INDECOM, because even under their old regime, the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) would often come a day late in some cases. There was a problem with not getting statements and we are there within hours and we are insisting on getting statements so it’s a whole new regime,” Williams reasoned.

He, however, noted that INDECOM was “heartened” by the fact that in the two cases which the Constitutional Court has ruled on, it was “quite explicit” in saying that INDECOM’s “procedures have been fair” and that in instances when it has made arrests and charged persons it had the authority to do so in addition to the right to question suspects.

He, however, had an olive branch.

“We are saying that if any member of the force disagrees or has any problems with our actions then their recourse is to review them in the court and let the court rule on it,” Commissioner Williams said.

The varying reactions, however, have INDECOM’s Assistant Commissioner Hamish Campbell, who spent some 40 years in the Metropolitan police force department dealing with homicide investigations and detective work in the United Kingdom, at a loss.

“I am very puzzled that there’s still after three years an internal angst within the police service to what is law and what is already settled legislation and it seems as if we are trying to step back and alter the law,” he noted.

Campbell in painting a contrast said the United Kingdom has had an Independent Commission for the last 15 years, which has the “power to arrest police officers, search their homes and they do arrest them and keep them for many hours, seize all their property”, he said.

“In the UK and elsewhere, an independent body is just that, it sets out to investigate on behalf of the public matters of death, brutality, all sorts of things and doesn’t allow the police service to interfere with the laws which have been settled,” he added.

Director of Complaints at INDECOM Nigel Morgan, who is in charge of the regional office for Kingston and St Andrew, was also at

pains to put the Commission in the clear.

“Something which we believe is very critical for members of the security forces generally, the JCF and the JDF. It came up recently and was made a public statement that INDECOM investigators are disarming members of the security forces [at crime scenes] and have left their safety in jeopardy. We wish to use this opportunity to categorically state that, that is not true,” he said.

Morgan said the report “has caused some anxiety among the rank and file members of the force”.

“I think it is very important that the message is sent to them that, that is a misrepresentation by virtue of perhaps bad information flowing to the giver or the deliverer, but it is important that this message be given to them that this is not ever done by INDECOM,” he said.

According to Morgan “in no instance will [INDECOM] ever cause the safety [of the officers] to be in jeopardy”.

“It (disarming) is done properly always at a police station or the most convenient place for all concerned”.