An­na-Lisa Paul

The po­lice of­fi­cer ar­rest­ed for al­leged­ly sell­ing scrap iron be­long­ing to the Po­lice Ser­vice to the own­ers of a Beetham scrap yard has been charged and will ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate to­day. The 28-year-old of­fi­cer, of Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma, is to be charged with mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice.

The in­struc­tion to charge was de­liv­ered by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon to Snr Supt Wayne Boyd, ASP Ajith Per­sad and Sgt An­drew John. John, of the Besson Street CID, laid the charge. The of­fi­cer was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day night, af­ter be­ing de­tained in con­nec­tion with the items that al­leged­ly had been sold to a Beetham scrap iron deal­er on Sun­day.

The for­mer Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cer was held fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions that 280 no park­ing signs and three po­lice bar­ri­cades had dis­ap­peared from the Old Traf­fic Branch, Sea Lots, on Sun­day. The old and rust­ed items were stored at the fa­cil­i­ty for the past sev­er­al years. It is al­leged that on Ju­ly 1, the of­fi­cer al­lowed the scrap iron deal­er, his son and an­oth­er man to en­ter the po­lice com­pound and re­move the scrap iron.

Of­fi­cers re­port­ing for du­ty on Mon­day ob­served the items miss­ing and filed a re­port at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion. The T&T Guardian learned dur­ing an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade on Tues­day at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, the of­fi­cer was iden­ti­fied by sev­er­al peo­ple. Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials on Tues­day al­so de­nied any po­lice ve­hi­cles were used in the trans­porta­tion of the scrap iron from the po­lice com­pound to the Beetham scrap iron yard.