Derek Achong

A po­lice of­fi­cer from Cas­cade was re­ar­rest­ed mo­ments af­ter he and his po­lice of­fi­cer broth­er ap­peared in court yes­ter­day for fab­ri­cat­ing a case against a watch­man. 

Jonathan Bart was con­front­ed by an of­fi­cer of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) as he walked out of a court­room at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day .

Bart, who was sur­round­ed by a large group of rel­a­tives, friends, and col­leagues, was in­formed that he was want­ed on in­quiries. 

As the area was crowd­ed, the of­fi­cer in­vit­ed Bart to ac­com­pa­ny him to the en­trance to the cour­t­house to con­tin­ue their dis­cus­sion. 

When Bart com­plied, he was al­leged­ly in­tro­duced to a man, who had made a re­port against him. The al­leged vic­tim was al­lowed to make his com­plaint in Bart’s pres­ence and then he (Bart) was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to PSB’s of­fice. 

Bart had not been charged, up to late yes­ter­day. 

Bart and his younger broth­er Justin stand ac­cused of mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by mak­ing false al­le­ga­tions against Daniel Lewis, a watch­man with the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. 

The of­fence is al­leged to have tak­en place on March 18, last year, at a gro­cery lo­cat­ed along the West­ern Main Road in St James. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the 30-year-old vic­tim was al­leged­ly at­tacked by the sib­lings but man­aged to get­away. 

While the vic­tim was mak­ing a re­port on the in­ci­dent at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion in Port-of-Spain, the duo ar­rived at the sta­tion and ar­rest­ed him. 

The fol­low­ing day, Lewis was charged with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, re­sist­ing ar­rest and as­sault­ing Bart. 

Af­ter he was re­leased on bail, Lewis made a re­port to PSB de­tec­tives, who in­ves­ti­gat­ed and laid the charge against the sib­lings. 

The charges against Lewis, which are still pend­ing, are ex­pect­ed to be dis­con­tin­ued by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) at a lat­er hear­ing of his case. 

Bart, 26, has five years’ ser­vice and was last as­signed to West­ern Di­vi­sion CID while his 24-year-old broth­er has four years’ ser­vice and was last as­signed to the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force. The sib­lings live in Cas­cade. 

Dur­ing their brief court ap­pear­ance be­fore act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Cher­ril-Anne An­toine, the Barts were not called up­on to plead to the charge which was laid in­dictably. 

An­toine cer­ti­fied the $100,000 in sta­tion bail they were each grant­ed by a Jus­tice of the Peace up­on be­ing charged on Wednes­day evening. 

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor In­sp Cal­lis­ter Charles in­formed An­toine that po­lice would need two months to for­ward their in­ves­tiga­tive file to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for a State at­tor­ney to be ap­point­ed to pros­e­cute the case. 

The broth­ers, who were rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Williams and Chelsea John, were or­dered to reap­pear in court on Jan­u­ary 31, next year. 

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by ACP To­taram Dookhie, Supt An­tho­ny Re­my, In­sp Sheri­don Hill, Cpls Paul Mo­hammed, and Lawrence Joe­field, and PC Ian Mitchell.