Jensen La Vende

Sighs of vex­a­tion and dis­ap­point­ment filled the Port-of-Spain Eighth Mag­is­trate's Court yes­ter­day af­ter court pros­e­cu­tor In­spec­tor Win­ston Dil­lon ob­ject­ed to bail for six of his ju­nior of­fi­cers charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice.

At least 15 po­lice of­fi­cers, not as­signed to the court or to the Court and Process Branch, flocked to the court­room be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar to lis­ten to the case of six con­sta­bles from the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (NEDTF).

Rel­a­tives of the six men filled the bench­es in the court­room mak­ing it al­most im­pos­si­ble for rel­a­tives of oth­er peo­ple ac­cused of crimes to find a seat.

Af­ter the mat­ter was ad­journed to Mon­day and the men told they had to spend the week­end in jail, an­gry po­lice of­fi­cers stormed out of the court­room suck­ing their teeth, while rel­a­tives of the men were seen cry­ing as they made their way out of the court­room.

At­tor­ney Vince Charles asked that spe­cial pro­vi­sion be put in place so that the men do not in­ter­min­gle with the gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion as the of­fi­cers would have caused some of the in­mates to be placed there through the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar made note of the re­quest and asked Dil­lon to en­sure that all be done to fa­cil­i­tate the re­quest.

The men have been re­mand­ed in cus­tody un­til Mon­day as the Chief Mag­is­trate mulls over the pos­si­bil­i­ty of deny­ing them their free­dom for at least 120 days.

In ob­ject­ing to bail Dil­lon said the of­fi­cers com­mit­ted the al­leged acts while in pos­ses­sion of their ser­vice weapon and there­by breached the Amend­ment to the Bail Act.

Charles, who rep­re­sent­ed five of the six ac­cused along with Wayne Sturge, ar­gued that if the men were to be de­nied bail a wrong mes­sage would be sent to all po­lice of­fi­cers.

His ar­gu­ment was sup­port­ed by Ster­ling John who rep­re­sent­ed one of the six.

John added that the law did not spec­i­fy if the weapon had to be used or whether the ac­cused could mere­ly have pos­ses­sion of the weapon but did not use it dur­ing the com­mis­sion of the of­fence.

He called on the pros­e­cu­tion to make it clear which of the two in­stances the men fall with­in be­fore bail was con­sid­ered.

Charles added: "These men are serv­ing mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and we owe them a debt of grat­i­tude.

"They were on of­fi­cial po­lice busi­ness and were not on some crim­i­nal frol­ic with un­li­censed firearms. Every po­lice here can't be work­ing in fear that they could be de­nied bail for 120 days if some­one brings an al­le­ga­tion against them. Their guns are le­git­i­mate tools of their trade."

Charles said a wrong mes­sage would be sent to po­lice of­fi­cers if the men were de­nied bail.

He said the of­fi­cers could not leave their guns lodged at the po­lice sta­tions be­fore go­ing out on du­ty.

Charles at­tempt­ed to sub­mit a search war­rant, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 5, one of the days the men are al­leged to have mis­be­haved in of­fice, but was told that it be best kept for tri­al.

Yes­ter­day's dis­course was not the first since the act be­came law in April last year.

In May last year, then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas said the law was clear in that any­one, with li­censed or un­li­censed guns, who com­mits one of 14 of­fences while in pos­ses­sion of the gun shall be de­nied bail for 120 days.

Nicholas said then: "If any per­son is charged with com­mit­ting a sched­uled of­fence while hav­ing in their pos­ses­sion a firearm, the Act ap­plies. The Bail Act has to be read in con­junc­tion with Sec­tion 6 of the Firearms Act Chap­ter 16:01."

Some of the of­fences which will de­ny some­one bail if they have a gun in their pos­ses­sion at the time of the of­fence in­clude bug­gery, rape, re­ceiv­ing stolen goods, sex with a fe­male un­der 14, per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice, rob­bery and ar­son.

It is the State's case that the of­fi­cers – Steve Williams,35, of Heights of Gua­napo Road, Ari­ma; Bran­don Thomp­son, 25, of Seey­ja­gat Trace, Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma; Ronald Samuel, 32 of Dun­can Trace, San Juan: and Kevon Patrick, 30, of King­dom Av­enue By­passs Road, Ari­ma, mis­be­haved in of­fice by threat­en­ing to charge false­ly Mary Dun­can, Peabo Dun­can and Kim­ber­ly James for pos­ses­sion of co­caine.

The of­fi­cers are al­so al­leged to have false­ly im­pris­oned and held against their will the trio and Stephan Wal­dron.

The of­fi­cers al­so al­leged­ly robbed Peabo Dun­can of $53,000 and $4,200 worth of jew­el­ry. The of­fences al­leged­ly took place on Jan­u­ary 5 at Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni.

Williams, Ryan Gran­di­son, 27, of Tu­nip Lane, La Hor­quet­ta and Dion Ot­t­ley, 31, of Bon Air Gar­dens, Arou­ca, are charged with threat­en­ing to charge false­ly Mark Ram­per­sad, Far­i­al Ramhar­rack and Laliee­ta Ram­dawan for pos­ses­sion of co­caine, mar­i­jua­na and a gun.

The of­fi­cers were al­so charged with rob­bing Ram­per­sad of $125,000 and $55,000 worth of jew­ellery. All of­fences took place on De­cem­ber 12, 2015 at Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni.

Ot­t­ley faced two sep­a­rate charges of at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice in that he, on De­cem­ber 13, 2015, made a false en­try in­to the sta­tion di­ary at the NEDTF of­fice at San­ta Cruz which stat­ed that he and an­oth­er of­fi­cer found and seized six rounds of .38 am­mu­ni­tion which was found in a red face tow­el in a cam­ou­flage pants and they al­so seized 13 pack­ets of co­caine.

The al­leged find was made on De­cem­ber 12 ac­cord­ing to the sta­tion di­ary en­try. The oth­er charge is that he, on De­cem­ber 12, 2015, was or­dered to take six round of am­mu­ni­tion to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, but failed to do so and could give no rea­son­able ex­pla­na­tion why.

The of­fi­cers were charged by PC Kelvin Mar­cano and Cpl Greer Brit­ton-Lawrence of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, both of whom were chas­tised by the Chief Mag­is­trate fo their un­pro­fes­sion­al­ism in fail­ing to at­tend court or give a rea­son­able ex­cuse.