Camille Clarke

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion Lester Lo­gie said yes­ter­day con­di­tions at Harts' Cut in Ch­aguara­mas have not changed even af­ter an apol­o­gy from Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er John Rougi­er. Prison of­fi­cers con­tin­ued to wait at the he­li­port for Coast Guard trans­port to fer­ry them to the Car­rera Is­land Prison. On Mon­day, 20 of­fi­cers com­plained of be­ing treat­ed with "gross dis­re­spect" by mem­bers of the Coast Guard, who were re­quired to shut­tle them to Car­rera.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred at Harts' Cut from where prison of­fi­cers are trans­port­ed. The of­fi­cers com­plained about the lack of shut­tle ser­vice, toi­let fa­cil­i­ties and sleep­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion. Rougi­er had apol­o­gised to act­ing Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the T&T Coast Guard Cap­tain Kir­ton Hug­gins and to prison of­fi­cers for what he said was a case of mis­un­der­stand­ing.

"A se­nior of­fi­cer came here and told us that cir­cum­stances will be changed by to­day (yes­ter­day) and it did not ma­te­ri­alise," Lo­gie said in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view.

"They re­port­ed for du­ty and had been stand­ing in the sun for a while and then some of the of­fi­cers got de­hy­drat­ed and sought med­ical at­ten­tion."

He said the of­fi­cers were promised tents and chairs by yes­ter­day and two con­tain­ers which would be air con­di­tioned. "The oth­er of­fi­cers who were on du­ty were not per­mit­ted to leave Car­rera be­cause the of­fi­cers were sick," Lo­gie said. Coast Guard pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lt Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste had said that all of­fi­cers were to park at the he­li­port.