00:00On March 20, Prime Minister Stuart Young announced that former Special Branch Head Arthur Barrington
00:06will take the helm of the SSA when Brigadier General retired Anthony Phillips Spencer's
00:11tenure ends on April 1.
00:13And while Barrington's selection by Cabinet has been labelled by Young as a move which
00:18provides immediate stability to the SSA, former Commissioner of Police and leader of the National
00:24Transformation Alliance Gary Griffith is questioning Barrington's suitability for the post.
00:30Griffith has taken to social media to address his concerns, saying Barrington was in New
00:35York as a representative during a lot of his latter years in the police service.
00:39Then he spent about a few months in charge of Special Branch.
00:42So the perception you're getting of he was the previous head of Special Branch, the guy
00:45spent a few months.
00:46Before that, he spent several years being the person who will carry the suitcase and
00:50stuff when the Prime Minister and the Security Minister will arrive in New York.
00:54He was the representative for Special Branch.
00:56In the era of technology, you need to have someone who is fully equipped to understand
01:00technology and so forth to be in charge of an intelligence agency for a country.
01:04He did not do that over the last few years.
01:06But outside of that, Griffith points to Barrington's appointment by then Prime Minister Dr Keith
01:11Rowley and approved by himself when he was police commissioner to conduct an independent
01:17firearms audit in the TTPS.
01:19He claims that it was due to a backlog of about 30,000 applications that were not being
01:24cleaned up.
01:25Former Chief of Defence Staff, retired Rear Admiral Hayden Pritchard, was appointed alongside
01:30Barrington.
01:31The information I have is those two individuals, when they signed that report, there was nothing
01:36that was illegal or unethical.
01:37In fact, they had some recommendations.
01:38Lo and behold, this Arthur Barrington decides to put it upon himself to write his own report,
01:45submit it to the Prime Minister, submit it to the Prime Minister, and then the Prime
01:50Minister then takes this and forwards it to Bliss Seaposad.
01:54Bliss Seaposad decides on her own to then withdraw the merit list with all the approval
01:59of the Police Service Commission.
02:01The Police Service Commission, it is minuted that they voice their concern that this Barrington
02:05sends a report and he is sending the report as a civilian without authority because he
02:10was not part of the two-man committee that signed it, he signed it on his own.
02:14Barrington claims that it was that report that was used as an avenue for the merit list
02:18withdrawal and what resulted thereafter.
02:21That was used as an avenue for a commissioner of police not to be reappointed.
02:24I noticed three years later, not one person has been questioned, arrested or charged based
02:29on that so-called Barrington report.
02:32But look at the damage that was done.
02:33Our whole Police Service Commission resigned in disgust because of what was done.
02:37Griffith Express' concern over the level of authority Barrington will now have as SSA
02:43against the backdrop of a report he claims was filled with hearsay.
02:47Subsequent to the Barrington-Pritchard report, the government appointed retired Justice Stanley
02:52John to investigate further and he produced a scathing report.
02:57Griffith then went to the court to prevent the government from laying the John report
03:01in Parliament, stating that he was not given an opportunity to respond to the damning allegations
03:06in that report.
03:08Griffith succeeded in that regard.
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