By now, I sup­pose al­most all of Trinidad and To­ba­go has read about the hor­ren­dous or­deal that Sabi­ta Bas­deo has had to en­dure. I re­call see­ing a video be­ing shared count­less times on so­cial me­dia of a man be­ing mer­ci­less­ly beat­en by a woman. I was amazed that no one seemed to in­ter­vene and the man be­ing beat­en kept his calm and didn’t at­tempt to fight back.

I lat­er saw a par­tic­u­lar Face­book page share a video, where­by it was con­tend­ed that the said page was be­ing asked to re­move com­ments that per­sons who lived in a par­tic­u­lar area were post­ing un­der the video. The ex­pla­na­tion giv­en was that the woman seen in the video, who ap­peared to be the ag­gres­sor, was tar­get­ing those who had com­ment­ed. It sound­ed like a vil­lage un­der siege. Who would have be­lieved that, as the tale un­fold­ed, Ms Bas­deo was al­leged­ly be­ing held hostage in a home for ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en years, be­ing abused and work­ing with­out pay?

The news com­ing for­ward now cen­tres around Ms Bas­deo and her or­deal. While I am out­raged for her and her fam­i­ly, I am al­so con­cerned about an­oth­er dy­nam­ic. The peo­ple in uni­form who have sworn to pro­tect and serve. It ap­pears re­ports were made to the po­lice sta­tion by Ms Bas­deo’s fam­i­ly. These re­ports were not record­ed, no in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched and no as­sis­tance ren­dered.

Aside from this, it is be­ing con­tend­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers may or may not have shared some re­la­tion­ship with the sus­pect and as such, turned a blind eye to some of her deeds. Giv­en the se­ri­ous­ness of this mat­ter, I won­der whether the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has launched a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine who were the of­fi­cers fail­ing to take re­ports, aid­ing, abet­ting or ren­der­ing as­sis­tance to the woman and, most im­por­tant­ly, whether charges or dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will stem from these in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions clear­ly lists the con­duct re­quired of of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing the be­hav­iour and ac­tions ex­pect­ed. On a dai­ly ba­sis, how­ev­er, we see these reg­u­la­tions be­ing flout­ed and no one seems to bat an eye. For ex­am­ple, at its sim­plest, an of­fi­cer, in terms of jew­ellery, is on­ly al­lowed to wear a wrist­watch, max­i­mum of two rings and any bracelet should be on­ly for ‘al­ler­gy alert’. On a dai­ly ba­sis, we see of­fi­cers adorned, per­haps not at all sta­tions, but it is clear­ly and open­ly done.

There are many of us who can tell a tale or two about vis­it­ing po­lice sta­tions and be­ing rude­ly and harsh­ly turned away, with the of­fi­cer re­fus­ing to even note your re­port. Oth­ers can tell sto­ries of of­fi­cers us­ing their po­si­tion to in­ter­vene in per­son­al mat­ters and dis­putes, us­ing threats of jail or charges. How much is re­al­ly done to ad­dress this? Yes, we have the ben­e­fit of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, but I am un­cer­tain what im­pact, if any, it has.

Per­son­al­ly, while I have had is­sues with cer­tain sta­tions and of­fi­cers, it is al­so im­por­tant to note a job well done. Last year, in the mid­dle of a con­fer­ence with an el­der­ly man and his rel­a­tives, I quick­ly re­alised the man was un­der duress and be­ing abused by the rel­a­tives to fol­low their in­struc­tions. I ter­mi­nat­ed the con­fer­ence but the rel­a­tives be­came up­set and walked out of my of­fice clear­ly abus­ing the el­der­ly man.

The San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion is with­in view of my of­fice. I called and ex­plained to an of­fi­cer my ob­ser­va­tions and with more swift­ness than I imag­ined, there was an of­fi­cer at my door ask­ing me for de­tails and two oth­ers al­ready on the street fol­low­ing the peo­ple and quick­ly in­ter­ven­ing when they saw the abuse. To date, I have yet to call on San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion and be turned away. For this, I am ap­pre­cia­tive.

On the oth­er hand, we have a vil­lage. A small com­mu­ni­ty where I am cer­tain every­one knows their neigh­bours. The fact that peo­ple are aware and afraid to speak, can see what is hap­pen­ing and not in­ter­vene, al­ludes to some form of fear. Added to this, that a woman can open­ly and bold­faced­ly abuse a man, shout and curse at peo­ple record­ing her and open­ly hit Ms Bas­deo, with­out fear of in­ter­ven­tion or charge makes one ques­tion what added lay­er of pro­tec­tion was she en­joy­ing.

I have seen the pub­lic calls for peo­ple to give state­ments re­gard­ing Ms Bas­deo’s mat­ter. I am anx­ious to see whether a team will be put to­geth­er to in­ves­ti­gate the al­le­ga­tions against the po­lice sta­tion and of­fi­cers, and whether any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would fol­low. It would be a mis­car­riage of jus­tice if of­fi­cers are al­lowed to be­have in this man­ner with­out rep­ri­mand.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com