Jesse Ramdeo & An­na-Lisa Paul

T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Me­dia Am­bas­sador, act­ing ASP Ra­jesh Lal, says the ser­vice views crit­i­cism as a way of im­prov­ing its op­er­a­tions and main­tains that po­lice con­tin­ue to treat re­ports of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence with ur­gency.

He was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) in its Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Re­port 2024 made pub­lic on Wednes­day, which crit­i­cised the po­lice for their re­sponse to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es, in­clud­ing those in­volv­ing their own col­leagues.

The PCA stressed that of­fi­cers are legal­ly re­quired un­der Sec­tion 21 of the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act to in­ves­ti­gate every do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­port, re­gard­less of whether vic­tims lat­er with­draw com­plaints.

“Po­lice must take these re­ports se­ri­ous­ly and in­ves­ti­gate thor­ough­ly,” the PCA re­port stat­ed.

It warned that the ab­sence of fol­low-up does not mean an end to the is­sue.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Lal ex­plained that if a vic­tim re­fus­es to give ev­i­dence, they are treat­ed as hos­tile wit­ness­es and in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter con­tin­ue.

“There are many mat­ters where vic­tims refuse to go fur­ther in the mat­ter and po­lice pros­e­cu­tors, once the vic­tim does not want fur­ther ac­tion, you have your job to do to lead the ev­i­dence that you were giv­en ini­tial­ly.”

The PCA al­so rec­om­mend­ed spe­cialised do­mes­tic vi­o­lence train­ing for of­fi­cers and the cre­ation of a Na­tion­al Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Reg­is­ter to track re­peat of­fend­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to Lal, po­lice of­fi­cers un­der­go reg­u­lar ex­er­cis­es aimed at im­prov­ing their re­sponse to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“What I can say is that there is con­tin­u­ous train­ing at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, the Po­lice Acad­e­my con­tin­ues to have out­reach pro­grammes and pro­grammes with­in the TTPS for in­ves­ti­ga­tors and once the mat­ter is re­ferred to the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD), the of­fi­cers there are al­so spe­cial­ly trained to deal with in­di­vid­u­als, any in­ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion should be re­port­ed to the se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer im­me­di­ate­ly

In its re­port, the PCA said do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is a pub­lic health is­sue that dev­as­tates lives and dis­rupts com­mu­ni­ties and can­not be “un­der-po­liced.”

It said de­spite ris­ing re­ports of in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence lead­ing to se­vere in­juries and fa­tal­i­ties, “vic­tims of­ten en­counter bar­ri­ers such as stig­ma and in­ad­e­quate sup­port from law en­force­ment and so­cial ser­vices.”

Un­der­scor­ing the ur­gent need for com­pre­hen­sive strate­gies that pri­ori­tise vic­tim pro­tec­tion, strength­en le­gal frame­works and fos­ter a cul­tur­al shift to­wards ze­ro tol­er­ance for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, the PCA sug­gest­ed, “It is al­so in­cum­bent for stake­hold­ers and re­spon­si­ble agen­cies to not work in si­los.”

One of the cas­es the PCA high­light­ed was a 2012 case of a 25-year-old woman from Va­len­cia who had been liv­ing with a po­lice of­fi­cer and his chil­dren.

The PCA wrote, “Their moth­er, his for­mer spouse, al­leged­ly set her­self on fire dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with this of­fi­cer. She died. Her suc­ces­sor de­scribed vi­o­lent threats on the low­est end of the spec­trum. Af­ter the au­thor­i­ties got in­volved she was in­ter­cept­ed by the of­fi­cer, who al­leged­ly slammed her to the ground, un­dressed her, in­sert­ed his fist in­to her vagi­na and kicked her re­peat­ed­ly - in her vagi­na. She next re­called wak­ing up at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.”

In­di­cat­ing these al­le­ga­tions were at the high­est end of the spec­trum, the PCA said fol­low­ing that bout of abuse, the vic­tim, “re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in any ac­tion against this of­fi­cer,” which posed sev­er­al prob­lems in terms of a re­fer­ral by the PCA for the pros­e­cu­tion of the case.

The PCA said a 2013 in­ci­dent in Aranguez led it to in­ves­ti­gate a com­plaint from the wife of a po­lice of­fi­cer who was ac­cused of hit­ting her with a stone in the back of her head.

The re­port stat­ed, “The PCA looked at his ac­tions and the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that the po­lice con­duct­ed. In both in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the woman even­tu­al­ly signed state­ments claim­ing that she did not want to pur­sue the mat­ter. But she ad­mit­ted to the PCA’s in­ves­ti­ga­tor that when she gave that po­si­tion to the po­lice, she was scared that, ‘some­thing se­ri­ous would have hap­pened as a re­sult of the in­ci­dent.’”

The PCA said the in­ves­ti­ga­tor did not record a state­ment from the vic­tim.

“She wrote up her own ver­sion and no ques­tions were put to her to clear up any am­bi­gu­i­ties or to gath­er use­ful in­for­ma­tion. As a re­sult, the of­fend­er was ques­tioned about the wrong date. He pro­vid­ed an al­i­bi for that date that the in­ves­ti­ga­tor put to him and quite help­ful­ly, copies of a du­ty di­ary were pro­duced to sup­port the al­i­bi. The state­ment by the of­fi­cer and the pro­duc­tion of this di­ary took place one year af­ter her com­plaint to the po­lice.”

In 2014 in Bel­mont, the PCA re­port said a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tim, whose spouse was an of­fi­cer, went to the po­lice for help.

“The Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent re­ferred the mat­ter to the PCA. She even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed a Dis­con­tin­u­ance Form and gave the fol­low­ing rea­son: “Your sys­tem is more puni­tive than re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive. I want help for my hus­band who has a drink­ing prob­lem…I do not want my hus­band to lose his job.”

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent in 2015, the PCA no­ti­fied the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice of al­le­ga­tions of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence against one of its own.

In this case, the of­fi­cer threat­ened to kill his spouse; arrange for some­one to kill her; throw acid on her; kill any lover she may have; and kid­nap their daugh­ter.

The PCA said when they in­ves­ti­gat­ed the mat­ter, there was no record of any of her re­ports.

The vic­tim sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cat­ed to the PCA that she did not want to pro­ceed as they had sep­a­rat­ed and “moved on.” She al­so did not want her name record­ed on any com­plaint, es­pe­cial­ly to the CoP, be­cause she was fi­nan­cial­ly de­pen­dent on the of­fi­cer and did not want him to lose his job.

In a Ju­ly 2016 case, a civil­ian made a re­port of as­sault by beat­ing and threats by her hus­band to the po­lice.

An of­fi­cer was as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate this mat­ter but failed to do so. This re­port was nev­er in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the TTPS. In Au­gust, the same civil­ian made a re­port of a breach of a pro­tec­tion or­der. An of­fi­cer was as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate and crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings were brought against the as­sailant. How­ev­er, the of­fi­cer failed to at­tend court. The civil­ian was mur­dered by her hus­band weeks be­fore the mat­ter was tried in the mag­is­trate’s court. The PCA re­ferred their find­ings to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, along with ad­vice on the con­duct of in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the TTPS.

In its re­port, the PCA has rec­om­mend­ed a group sim­i­lar to the Strate­gic Sup­port Group (SSG) in the UK be es­tab­lished to re­view cas­es and iden­ti­fy any lessons for the PCA and for polic­ing. It is al­so lob­by­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ves­tiga­tive and pro­ce­dur­al man­u­al for po­lice and a na­tion­al do­mes­tic vi­o­lence reg­is­ter.