UNDER the stewardship of acting top cop James Philbert more than 650 murders have been committed, statistics have shown.

Philbert, who has been acting as this country’s Police Commissioner for the past 15 months, took over the reins of this country’s Police Service after the surprise resignation of then top cop, Trevor Paul, on June 27 last year.

Paul’s departure from office came at a time when the Police Service Commission’s (PSC) search for the country’s next top cop was in progress.

And as such Philbert, the most senior officer in the Service, was appointed by the PSC to act in the top cop role, to fill the void left by Paul.

Philbert was later left in charge of the reins of the Police Service after controversy surrounded the appointment of ACP Stephen Williams, who was deemed the rightful heir to the CoP throne following the PSC selection process.

When Philbert took over as CoP on July 5 last year, the murder toll in this country stood at 269.

For the remainder of that year some 281 more murders were committed, which resulted in the year 2008 ending with a record high of 550 murders.

And for this year, some 374 murders have been recorded so far, according to Express statistics.

According to these figures some 655 murders have been committed during the 437 days that Philbert has been in charge of local law enforcement.

Fifteen people are murdered every ten days, according to these statistics.

With this deadly trend, it is quite possible that this year’s murder toll will end somewhere in the same region as last year’s record tally.

Last year there were 377 murders as compared to the 374 recorded so far this year.

In 2007 where the murder toll narrowly missed the once inconceivable 400 mark, there were some 237 murders for a similar period, statistics have shown.

Since his appointment to the position of acting CoP, Philbert has been given two six-month extensions in his tenure.

The first six-month extension granted to Philbert came on December 3 last year in an effort to allow the Government enough time to bring proper legislation to the Parliament.

And on May 22, Philbert was again granted another six-month extension by the PSC.