JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing Unit (EMU) man­ag­er Lawrence Hinds says the unit has op­er­at­ed at just 50 per cent staffing ca­pac­i­ty since its in­cep­tion but in­sists man­pow­er short­ages were not re­spon­si­ble for the es­cape of the coun­try’s first con­vict­ed hu­man traf­fick­er, Michael An­tho­ny Smith.

Hinds made the state­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ing on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing) Act, 2012.

He al­so dis­missed any sug­ges­tion that Smith had been as­sist­ed by EMU per­son­nel.

“Based on the leg­is­la­tion, per­sons en­rolled in the pro­gramme are in­formed that breach­es of the sys­tem can re­sult in fines and im­pris­on­ment. That’s a caveat to keep you on your P’s and Q’s,” he said.

Smith ab­scond­ed in 2023 while on tri­al for hu­man traf­fick­ing and was con­vict­ed in ab­sen­tia. He was re­cap­tured in Feb­ru­ary 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to Hinds, Smith was un­der EMU su­per­vi­sion for about three years be­fore tam­per­ing with his an­kle mon­i­tor some­where along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route on Sep­tem­ber 24, 2023.

Smith was first ar­rest­ed on Jan­u­ary 5, 2016, and charged with re­cruit­ing a child for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing, 17 counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child, five counts of child pros­ti­tu­tion and three counts of as­sault.

Hinds said the de­vice Smith was wear­ing was part of the pro­gramme’s orig­i­nal pi­lot project, which was re­placed when the full elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem was rolled out in 2020.

He said since its es­tab­lish­ment, the EMU, which op­er­ates un­der the Jus­tice Min­istry, has rec­om­mend­ed 168 peo­ple for elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing from 501 re­quests re­ceived. He stressed that while the unit may ad­vise against plac­ing some­one on the pro­gramme be­cause of se­cu­ri­ty or op­er­a­tional con­cerns, the fi­nal de­ci­sion rests with the courts.

Among the main rea­sons for a neg­a­tive rec­om­men­da­tion are is­sues re­lat­ing to a re­li­able elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply. Hinds said some ap­pli­cants live in homes with il­le­gal elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions or util­i­ty ac­counts that are not reg­is­tered in their names.

Health con­cerns can al­so af­fect el­i­gi­bil­i­ty. Hinds re­called a case in which a client’s an­kle be­came swollen, re­quir­ing the mon­i­tor­ing de­vice to be re­moved.