The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

IN the sixties and early seventies our Criminal Investigation Department was led by the late Stanley Moir, who joined the Police Service here from Bermuda. He was able to get approval for an increase in personnel to join stalwarts, such as Ormond Briggs, Anthony Fields, Milan Gittens, Louis Hemmings, Courtney Strachan and Allardyce Strachan.

A number of younger constables joined us. I recall Garth Johnson, Douglas Hanna, Arthur Yearwood, Basil Dean and Alfred Bullard, recently deceased. Moir, through his exceptional leadership, management skills was able to improve the standard of performance of the CID from “satisfactory” to efficient and effective. He developed personal relationships with the detectives and we became loyal to him.

Alfred Bullard was one of the young members of Moir’s team. He was always physically fit and could endure the long hours required at times to complete investigations. His immense local knowledge of the New Providence environment, places and people were very useful to the team when searching for suspects who may have gone into hiding, persons we needed to be interviewed, and places we needed to execute search warrants.

The “Bull” as he was nicknamed by his colleagues had a wealth of reliable informants in all areas of New Providence, which was one of his greatest assets. During that era of the CID, there was no Fraud Squad, Drug Squad or Special Branch. We were trained to fulfil all those tasks, which also included protection of the Prime Minister. Sir Lynden Pindling’s first security aide came from among us.

All of those young detectives mentioned eventually became senior officers, with Basil Dean and Douglas Hanna becoming Assistant Commissioners.

Bullard after his retirement became Director of Security at LIPA and rendered full cooperation with the Police Service all of us, who were members of that group known as “Stan Moir’s Team” will remember and mourn the loss of a great detective.

PAUL THOMPSON Sr

Nassau,

July 12, 2018.