FORMER commissioner of police Gary Griffith is defending his decision to hire attorneys outside of the Solicitor General's Department and the Chief State Solicitor's Office to represent the police in certain matters.

On Sunday, media reports revealed the practice by Griffith to bypass the two offices and pay private lawyers to represent the police in court.

Griffith, in a social media post on Monday, said the police only represented itself in judicial review matters, habeas corpus matters and administrative tribunals. He added that this is 'well permissible in law,' and there was nothing wrong with the police seeking to represent itself in such matters.

He said the State Liability Act and the duty of the office of the Attorney General to represent the State and its agents in other matters, was never interfered with under his watch.

He said the legal unit, formed in 2007, operated like a courier service transporting information to and from the Attorney General's office. The state attorneys, he said, did all the legal work, including responding to pre-action letters in freedom of information matters, judicial review and habeas corpus matters.

'In order to start to deal with the backlog of previous, pending and impending court matters, attorneys were retained to address some of the court matters, specifically judicial review cases, in an attempt to reduce the number of matters against the TTPS and, more importantly, to assist in making the legal department an efficient and effective unit which it now boasts of being and is now able to deliver the requisite services in a timely manner.'

Addressing concerns about the amount of money spent on legal fees during his tenure as commissioner, Griffith said, in the last ten years, billions of dollars were spent by successive administrations on legal fees. But he said the $1.1 million fee highlighted in the media was paid to 12 attorneys over a two-year period.

'So what has been spent is but a drop in the ocean, especially to achieve such an impeccable result. It is therefore my opinion that this story is nothing more than typical scandalous reporting, devoid of merit, and geared towards alarming readers, when there is not a scintilla of truth to it.'