Police Commissioner Verne Garde says the investigation into criminal allegations involving government minister Richard Frederick is finished, and investigators could not prove the claims.
Garde provided this update at a police press conference on Wednesday. He confirmed that he reviewed the investigation’s findings and agreed with the investigating officer’s recommendation.
“An allegation was made. We looked into the particular allegation, and the allegation was not sustained,” Garde said.
In this context, “not sustained” means the investigation did not find enough evidence to support the allegation.
The investigation began after Frederick’s arrest, which became public when St Lucia Times asked Garde at a July 2 press conference about reports of a senior government official’s arrest.
The police chief had previously not named the official. This time, he identified Frederick directly while giving the update.
“A senior government official, right, in the person of Mr Richard Frederick, was arrested on that particular day,” Garde said. “I did give instructions for the matter to be continually investigated so that we could get all the facts in the matter.”
Those instructions led to an investigation that Garde described as complicated and extensive.
At first, police did not have a statement from the people who made the report. Garde said they worked hard to get one, including having an officer travel outside Saint Lucia.
“We expended all the resources within our unit to try to secure the statement, which we did. Actually, the investigative officer had to do some overseas travel to try to secure the statement.”
After getting the statement, police continued their investigation.
“We did follow-up investigations in regards to the allegations,” Garde said. “Based on all of the investigations which we did, which is quite voluminous, we were not able to sustain the allegation.”
However, the exact nature of the allegation against Frederick has not been made public.
When pressed on Wednesday about both the nature of the allegation and the investigating officer’s recommendation, Garde said he was constrained in what he could reveal.
“I am not in a position to say what the allegation is,” he said. He explained that the Criminal Code requires police to be careful about what information is shared publicly during criminal cases.
Garde also stressed that this outcome should not stop anyone from coming to the police with a complaint.
“As long as somebody feels that their rights have been infringed, we are obligated to assist them,” he said.
The latest statement from Police Commissioner Verne Garde concerning Richard Frederick should be welcomed for one simple reason: there is finally an answer.
The Commissioner says the investigation is finished, that he personally reviewed the findings, and that he agreed with the investigating officer that the allegation could not be sustained. He also says that police went to considerable lengths to investigate it, including sending an officer overseas to obtain a statement, and that the investigation was extensive.
So let’s be clear about what “not sustained” means. It means the police did not find sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation. It does not establish that nothing happened, and it certainly isn’t a finding of guilt or innocence by a court.
That should be the end of the criminal allegation as far as the available evidence is concerned.
But here is the problem: a lot of Saint Lucians simply don’t trust the system enough to hear that statement and say, “Okay, that’s the end of it.”And that scepticism didn’t come from nowhere.
Go back to October 2023.
Richard Frederick himself went on his television programme, Can I Help You, and spoke about receiving information from police officers concerning private citizens.
That was an extraordinary thing for a senior politician to say.
Opposition Leader Allen Chastanet subsequently wrote to Police Commissioner Cruscita Descartes-Pelius demanding an investigation, raising concerns about police confidentiality and the possible misuse of confidential information.
And this wasn’t simply an opposition politician making a political accusation.
The following month, Deputy Police Commissioner Mashama Sealy publicly acknowledged that concerns about confidentiality and public trust within the Police Force were longstanding. She said that when she joined the Force in 1998, lack of confidentiality and public trust was already an issue—and more than two decades later, it remained one.
So when a senior politician publicly says that he receives confidential police information, and senior police officers themselves acknowledge longstanding problems with confidentiality, is it really surprising that people become suspicious?
It doesn’t prove that Richard Frederick did anything wrong.
It doesn’t prove that police officers improperly provided him with information.
But it certainly explains why the public’s confidence is fragile.
And then there are the drug cases.
In April 2021, police and Customs discovered an enormous quantity of compressed cannabis in a shipping container at commercial premises in the north of the island. Five years later, police have described that investigation as a “cold case.”
Now, the legal difficulty is understood. Finding drugs in a container does not automatically establish who imported them or who owned them.
But surely ordinary people are entitled to ask some very basic questions.
A shipping container doesn’t appear in Marisule by magic.
Somebody shipped it.
Somebody booked it.
Somebody paid for it.
There should be a shipping line.
There should be a bill of lading.
There should be a consignee or notify party.
There should be Customs documentation.
There should be a broker.
There should be records of the container entering the port.
There should be records of it leaving.
There should be a truck.
There should be a driver.
There should be somebody who arranged for that driver to collect it.
There should be CCTV.
There should potentially be telephone records, financial records and electronic communications.
And presumably, somebody knew that the container was coming.
None of those things necessarily proves who owned the drugs.
But when the public is told, five years later, that the case is cold because investigators cannot establish who brought the container there, it is perfectly reasonable to ask:
Was every possible avenue really exhausted?
And if it was, what exactly prevented investigators from following that trail to the people responsible?
Then there is the other drug matter involving drugs reportedly found in 55-gallon drums at a business premises in Gros Islet.
What happened there?
What was the outcome?
Was anyone charged?
Was the investigation abandoned?
If not, where does it stand?
If the public has never been given a proper explanation, people naturally add that case to the list.
Again, that doesn’t mean anyone is guilty.
It means there are unanswered questions.
And unanswered questions are fertile ground for suspicion.
This is why it is rather unfair when people dismiss public concern as social-media conspiracy theories or political cynicism.
People understand perfectly well that the police need evidence before they can charge someone.
What they don’t understand is why some cases seem to produce very little information for years.
And then there is the Frederick investigation itself.
The Commissioner says the allegation was serious enough to warrant a substantial investigation. Police apparently had to work hard to obtain the complainant’s statement, including sending an officer overseas. There were follow-up investigations and, according to the Commissioner, the resulting file was “quite voluminous.”
Yet the public is not being told what the allegation actually was.
Commissioner Garde says he is constrained by the Criminal Code from providing that information.
That may be entirely proper.
But it creates an extraordinary situation.
People know there was an allegation.
They know a senior Government minister was arrested.
They know he was questioned.
They know an investigation followed.
They know the investigation was extensive.
They know the Commissioner has concluded that the allegation could not be sustained.
But they don’t know what the allegation was.
So what exactly are they supposed to make of it?
The answer is that they should not make a judgment about the allegation itself. That would be unfair to Mr Frederick and contrary to basic principles of justice.
But they are entitled to judge the process.
And the process has to be sufficiently credible to maintain public confidence.
This is bigger than Richard Frederick.
It is bigger than Allen Chastanet.
It is bigger than the SLP or the UWP.
It is about whether Saint Lucians believe that the institutions of the State operate independently and consistently, whoever happens to be in Government.
Because if people believe that political connections influence policing, prosecution, public contracts or the administration of justice, then even a perfectly legitimate police decision can be viewed with suspicion.
That is a terrible position for a country to be in.
And the police themselves have recognised the problem.
In 2023, Deputy Commissioner Sealy spoke about the need to rebuild public trust and the Force’s efforts to address confidentiality and information leaks.
So this isn’t something invented by political opponents or social-media commentators.
The Police Force itself has acknowledged that public confidence is a problem.
The question is what has actually been done about it.
And frankly, more press conferences telling people to trust the institutions are not enough.
People need more transparency.
They need proper independent oversight.
They need explanations of why major investigations succeed or fail.
They need confidence that the same investigative standards apply whether the person involved is an ordinary citizen or a senior Government minister.
Because there is an enormous difference between saying:
“We investigated and there was insufficient evidence.”
and saying:
“Trust us, we investigated.”
The first invites confidence.
The second demands it.
And confidence in institutions cannot be demanded.
It has to be earned.
That is why the latest Frederick announcement should be accepted for what it is: the police have ”concluded” that they could not substantiate the allegation.
But that should not end the wider conversation.
Why do so many Saint Lucians immediately suspect that there must be something more?
Why does a police statement sometimes produce more questions than answers?
Why do major drug investigations appear to go cold?
Why did a senior Government minister feel comfortable publicly claiming access to confidential police information in the first place?
And what happened after those claims were made?
These questions do not make anybody guilty.
They do not make the police corrupt.
They do not make Richard Frederick guilty.
And they certainly do not make the Opposition right.
But they tell us something very important about the state of public confidence.
And perhaps that is the real story.
A democracy cannot function properly when citizens believe that the rules apply differently depending on who you are.
The answer isn’t to tell people to stop asking questions.
The answer is to build institutions so transparent, independent and professional that eventually the questions answer themselves.
Because the greatest danger isn’t that citizens become too sceptical.
It is that they become so sceptical that they stop believing the answers altogether.
Richard Frederick was born on August 6, 1965, a country boy, the elite despise because of his educational achievements. We all know John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The gossip and hate mongers in St. Lucia might just pin JFK murder of Richard now that they are not satisfied with the outcome of the false accusations made by a women with a hidden agenda.
To all those who continue to make Richard Frederick their whipping boy, their daily boogie man with baseless innuendoes, please get a life.