SASCHA WIL­SON

A for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, who forged a sick leave 13 years ago, is ask­ing a judge to pun­ish him by giv­ing him com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice while the State is push­ing for a cus­to­di­al sen­tence.

Jus­tice Car­la Brown-An­toine is ex­pect­ed to pass sen­tence on Nigel Ram­lal, 39, on De­cem­ber 5.

Ear­li­er this month, Ram­lal, who was at­tached to the Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion, when he was charged, was found guilty by a ju­ry in the San Fer­nan­do High Court of forgery and ut­ter­ing a forged doc­u­ment.

In a mit­i­ga­tion plea to­day, de­fence at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day asked the judge not to con­sid­er his main­te­nance of in­no­cence as a lack of re­morse or an ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tor.

Pan­day said at the time of the of­fence hios client was an al­co­holic and may have been in a drunk­en stu­por as he was sel­dom sober.

Pan­day said af­ter Ram­lal was charged he was on a de­struc­tive path, liv­ing al­most like a va­grant.

Five years ago, how­ev­er, Ram­lal joined a church and turned his life around. He said Ram­lal stopped drink­ing al­co­hol and mar­ried a preach­er.

He al­so preach­es to mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion and is in­volved in out­reach and com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes as well as so­cial work.

The judge was pre­sent­ed with “quite a num­ber” of tes­ti­mo­ni­als in­clud­ing one from a teenag­er who de­scribed Ram­lal as his role mod­el. A video of him preach­ing was al­so pre­sent­ed to the court.

Sub­mit­ting that Ram­lal has al­ready lost his job and is not in need of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, Pan­day sug­gest­ed a sus­pend­ed sen­tence on the con­di­tion that he per­forms 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

How­ev­er, State at­tor­ney Veon­na Neale-Mon­roe point­ed out sev­er­al ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tors, in­clud­ing the fact that he was a po­lice of­fi­cer at the time of the of­fence and his ac­tions would have tar­nished the po­lice ser­vice.

Not­ing that the of­fences are se­ri­ous, she said there is a need to de­ter Ram­lal and oth­er per­sons from com­mit­ing these of­fences. She sug­gest­ed he be jailed for 15 months.

The State’s case is that on Ju­ly 25, 2006, Ram­lal’s broth­er sub­mit­ted a sick leave ap­pli­ca­tion and a med­ical cer­tifi­cate on his be­half for 60 days. How­ev­er, it was lat­er dis­cov­ered that the sick leave was for six days, a ze­ro was added to the num­ber six and “ty” added to the word “six.”

He was charged by An­ti Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau Su­per­in­ten­dent Kent Ghisyawan who was then a Sergeant at­tached to the Fraud Squad.