Geisha Kow­lessar

A des­per­ate cry has gone out to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs from a woman cor­po­ral of an elite Port-of-Spain unit who has charged sex­u­al ha­rass­ment by her male su­pe­ri­or. The cor­po­ral, who sent an eight-page let­ter to the top cop on Mon­day, said she was "forced to suf­fer silent­ly" be­cause of re­peat­ed "in­ap­pro­pri­ate touch­es"and threats from her su­pe­ri­or, a male sergeant. "I feel raped of my dig­ni­ty and abil­i­ty to seek re­dress as there is no writ­ten law or stand­ing or­der which speaks to this act," the cor­po­ral wrote. On the same day, an­oth­er let­ter was al­so sent to Gibbs from an act­ing woman in­spec­tor who charged "op­pres­sive con­duct" on the part of an act­ing ASP.

The in­ci­dents have raised con­cerns by the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion of a grow­ing num­ber of com­plaints of male of­fi­cers de­mand­ing sex from ju­nior fe­male of­fi­cers. The T&T Guardian ob­tained copies of the let­ters in which the al­leged vic­tims called for the im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of Gibbs and begged him not to sweep the mat­ters un­der the car­pet. A copy of one of the let­ter al­so was sent to the head of Spe­cial Branch, Se­nior Supt Ann-Marie Al­leyne. The fe­male cor­po­ral al­so de­mand­ed that the male sergeant be dis­ci­plined and cit­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice's Reg­u­la­tions 2007.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, the cor­po­ral said she worked at the unit for the past six years and the male of­fi­cer be­came her im­me­di­ate su­per­vi­sor in Ju­ly 2011. "Dur­ing the ini­tial stages I would have en­joyed a very har­mo­nious re­la­tion­ship with no com­plaints from ei­ther my­self or the male of­fi­cer (named),

"How­ev­er, this re­la­tion­ship will soon de­gen­er­ate to one that can on­ly be de­scribed as re­pug­nant," the let­ter stat­ed. In the let­ter the cor­po­ral cit­ed many in­stances where the sergeant would tell her that she looked beau­ti­ful and "lust­ful­ly re­mark, 'If on­ly'."

The cor­po­ral said the sergeant al­so kept on ques­tion­ing whether she shared an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship with any­one and on one in­stance de­mand a hug while she was on du­ty at a Port-of-Spain ho­tel. "I looked at him in dis­gust and sheer amaze­ment and said: 'Sergeant, your be­hav­iour is to­tal­ly un­be­com­ing', sub­se­quent to which I marched off," the let­ter added. She said the fol­low­ing day, she re­port­ed for du­ty and de­lib­er­ate­ly omit­ted to ex­tend any salu­ta­tions to the sergeant. She said on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2011 while on du­ty the sergeant told her: " I want to apol­o­gise for what hap­pened Mon­day. I thought about it at home and I didn't con­sid­er the sergeant-cor­po­ral su­per­vi­sor re­la­tion­ship.

"Al­so I was de­pressed, prob­lems at home with the wife. What do you think?" The cor­po­ral said she re­spond­ed by say­ing "I hear you" but was still trou­bled. The let­ter cit­ed an­oth­er in­stance on Sep­tem­ber 23, 2011 where the sergeant in­vit­ed the cor­po­ral to his of­fice to look at a cor­re­spon­dence. "Be­fore I was able to com­mence read­ing the cor­re­spon­dence he place his left hand on my shoul­der and ca­ressed it which is in prox­im­i­ty to my breast," the let­ter stat­ed. It cit­ed an­oth­er ex­am­ple of a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent as the cor­po­ral was again us­ing the com­put­er on Oc­to­ber 13, 2011.

The cor­po­ral said the sergeant al­so made threat­en­ing state­ments to her, re­mind­ing her he was the one who would be con­duct­ing her ap­praisal. "My work, fam­i­ly life and health have been gross­ly af­fect­ed as I am con­stant­ly an­gry by the sergeant's ac­tions," the cor­po­ral said. The oth­er in­ci­dent oc­curred at a Cen­tral po­lice sta­tion at which the act­ing fe­male In­spec­tor was as­signed to on Au­gust 2011. She has since been trans­ferred out of the sta­tion and has charged "op­pres­sive treat­ment" on the part of an act­ing ASP.

No leg­is­la­tion-as­so­ci­a­tion

An ur­gent call has been made to Gov­ern­ment by sec­re­tary of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sgt Michael Seales to im­ple­ment leg­is­la­tion do deal with sex­u­al ha­rass­ment with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice. He said: "There is noth­ing in place. We would have hoped that with the ad­vent of three women to the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive we would have had some type of in­ter­ven­tion or some pol­i­cy be­ing in­tro­duced to curb in­ci­dences of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment. Un­for­tu­nate­ly we did not get that "The Stand­ing Or­der is de­void of any guide­lines and the 2007 Reg­u­la­tions al­so did not cater for it." He said the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so was de­mand­ing an im­me­di­ate meet­ing with Gibbs.

"The re­ports that came to us we were star­tled by the com­ments and the per­sons in­volved would have tried to al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion by speak­ing to the per­sons con­cerned but it did not hap­pen," Seales added. He iden­ti­fied one par­tic­u­lar unit in Port-of-Spain where in­ci­dents were most preva­lent and pur­port­ed­ly com­mit­ted by the head of the unit. Seales said: "One par­tic­u­lar woman sergeant who com­plained was trans­ferred from that sec­tion to the Court and Process Branch. "Some of the oth­er vic­tims are afraid to come for­ward be­cause they will be trans­ferred. "It is sad. These is­sues are be­ing swept un­der the car­pet by even some se­nior women po­lice of­fi­cers," Seales added.