(Trinidad Guardian) Deputy Police Commissioner Wayne Dick said yesterday that the police service was convinced it had charged the correct man in the murder of Shannon Banfield.
He made the comment during a press conference yesterday, as he said contrary to rumours investigators were also satisfied Dale Seecharan, the man charged for the crime, acted alone.
“I am satisfied at this point in time that he acted alone,” Dick said when asked if the police were searching for any other suspects in Banfield’s death, amid rumours that a businessman close to the company she was found dead in may also be responsible.
Dick also dispelled other rumours that Banfield’s organs were harvested during a ritual, a claim made via a Facebook post purportedly by someone close to the Banfield family.
Asked about it yesterday, Dick said: “There is absolutely no truth (to that claim).”
Dick also rubbished suggestions the police were tampering of evidence, namely the CCTV footage, saying none of the evidence had been contaminated in anyway. He said the investigation was under his “astute leadership”and included officers of the Special Branch, Criminal Gang and Intelligence Unit, Port-of- Spain Task Force and the Criminal Records Department. He said he was satisfied with the level of professionalism and team work the officers displayed. He could not say which policing unit first went to IAM and Company and was denied access to the CCTV footage, as stated in a police media release during the early stages of the investigations.
In a release, the police service had claimed they made three requests for the CCTV footage from IAM and Company, where her decomposing body was found on December 8, three days after she went into the store. The release claimed the management was not “readily forthcoming” with the footage.
But yesterday, Dick thanked IAM management for their cooperation in the case, saying it is possible a miscommunication between the police may have led to the inaccurate police claims.
Dick said: “Based on how sometimes one person says one thing and it goes to another and if you understand communication it gets skewed along the way, to my mind that information is incorrect.”
But he said despite this there was no breakdown of communication within the police service.
He also thanked Pennywise for their help in the case and said both places are safe to shop, especially IAM, which faced a social media call for a boycott of the business following the discovery of Banfield’s body there.
Asked about possible ineptness of the police in locating Banfield’s body in the store she was last seen in sooner, Dick said the officers were working with information and at the time it suggested she visited and left the store.
“As an investigator, and with the experience I have, I personally will commend the officers in their investigation. There is something called the reasonable man and with all reasonable steps taken, it was hardly likely, based on the unfolding of the investigation, the way evidence came about, that that body would have been found earlier. I am pleased in the manner the investigators conducted the investigation. Information comes in different ways, it was said that she went into the store and it was said that she left, that was the information that police had. It was because of the diligent inquiry conducted by the team that they learnt otherwise,” Dick said.
He also denied police did haphazard searches of the building which forced them to return days after Banfield’s body was found to recover a bloodied towel, suggested to be the murder weapon.
He said the evidence against Seecharan is strong, adding that Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard SC, would not bring charges against someone unless the evidence meets the burden of proof.
Yesterday’s briefing was the second high profile murder case in recent times in which senior police members addressed the media on the case at a briefing. The first was the assassination of attorney Dana Seetahal SC in July last year, following her murder in May the previous year.
