The high court of Trinidad and Tobago ruled that The Express newspaper defamed former Police Commissioner Gary Griffith in a newspaper article. Griffith responded to the ruling:
The article was defamatory to me, and they were also unable to bring any evidence to court to justify their false claims
The court has made a ruling in relation to my defamation claim against the Trinidad Express Newspaper, when they published the following in 2020-
That firearms were being issued to applicants with criminal charges
That firearms were being issued to applicants who had abused their wives
That firearms were being fast tracked to applicants via payments being given through I Support our Service.
These were damning accusations, and I was left with no option other than to take this to court to expose that these allegations were false, and to demand that the defendants reveal any such claim, as it was a lie.
As expected, they were unable to provide any shred of evidence of such accusation mentioned above as they were all lies, as no such applicant ever received a firearm with such reports .
The court ruling confirmed that it was also indeed defamatory by nature, and even though the Express when called upon in court, to show any shred of evidence to justify their false claims, were unable to do so, but nevertheless, the court also decided that this was seen as responsible journalism.
I would now weigh my options, but I thought it mandatory to show that the allegations were false and misleading, as well as being defamatory, and this was done.
Gary Griffith