Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

With­in a week, four crim­i­nal mat­ters were dis­missed or dis­charged ow­ing to a lack of pre­pared­ness on the part of po­lice of­fi­cers.

The fail­ure of of­fi­cers to at­tend court pro­ceed­ings or gen­er­al non-com­pli­ance with the court’s in­struc­tions has been an is­sue for decades as po­lice have been re­peat­ed­ly crit­i­cised by the pub­lic, ju­di­cial of­fi­cers and even their se­nior of­fi­cers.

Da­ta from the po­lice Court and Process Branch re­vealed that in 2019 alone, there were 1,800 cas­es where po­lice of­fi­cers failed to at­tend court.

In one of the most no­tice­able ex­am­ples of ac­cused per­sons walk­ing free from po­lice un­pre­pared­ness, Joel Bel­con, one of the per­sons sus­pect­ed in the rape, kid­nap­ping and mur­der of 23-year-old law clerk An­drea Bharatt was said to have 70 charges against him for sim­i­lar of­fences in 2017.

In a 2021 news­pa­per re­port, an at­tor­ney who claimed to have rep­re­sent­ed Bel­con re­port­ed that more than 30 mat­ters were dis­missed against his then-client as the po­lice were nev­er ready and nev­er pre­sent­ed wit­ness­es.

“The per­sons to be blamed in the mat­ter is not the lawyer, is not the court, the court was ad­vo­cat­ing ag­gres­sive­ly for these mat­ters to start and to deal with him,” the at­tor­ney said.

Bel­con and An­drew “So­lo” Mor­ris were im­pli­cat­ed in Bharatt’s death and died while in po­lice cus­tody fol­low­ing their ar­rests in 2021.

In re­sponse, then head of the Court and Process Unit Snr Supt Nazrudeen Pragg rec­om­mend­ed that fail­ure to at­tend court for po­lice of­fi­cers be raised from a Cat­e­go­ry B to a Cat­e­go­ry A of­fence, mak­ing er­rant po­lice of­fi­cers li­able to sus­pen­sion or even dis­missal.

In May, High Court Judge Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad chid­ed po­lice of­fi­cers who did not ap­pear in court for mat­ters and called for them to be fined. Seep­er­sad sug­gest­ed that amend­ments be made to the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules 2023 em­pow­er­ing mag­is­trates to im­pose sanc­tions when court di­rec­tives are not obeyed. He not­ed that the bur­den of proof was on the pros­e­cu­tion to prove their case be­yond rea­son­able doubt and prop­er track­ing mea­sures were need­ed for mat­ters list­ed for tri­al.

“If po­lice of­fi­cers have to pay fines from their pock­ets when they fail to at­tend tri­als, it is like­ly that non-at­ten­dance would be­come the ex­cep­tion rather than the norm,” Seep­er­sad said.

On Thurs­day, the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) re­port­ed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be launched in­to the col­lapse of mat­ters. The au­thor­i­ty added that they have ad­vised suc­ces­sive Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice over the last 13 years on how to treat of­fi­cers who fail to at­tend court or fol­low the court’s in­struc­tions.

The PCA is an in­de­pen­dent body re­spon­si­ble for in­ves­ti­gat­ing mat­ters of po­lice mis­con­duct and abuse. While the Au­thor­i­ty can­not charge er­rant of­fi­cers, it can com­pile re­ports and make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for crim­i­nal charges to be laid against an of­fi­cer.

In sit­u­a­tions where of­fi­cers act­ed in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly but have not com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal of­fence, the PCA can make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion to be tak­en.

The PCA re­port­ed that be­tween Oc­to­ber 1, 2023, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, 17 mat­ters were for­ward­ed to the DPP for con­sid­er­a­tion. In the same pe­ri­od, the PCA for­ward­ed 161 mat­ters to the Com­mis­sion­er for in­ter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings.

How­ev­er, en­sur­ing that of­fi­cers at­tend court and ful­fil their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties re­quires the sup­port of the TTPS lead­er­ship.

Cas­es against po­lice of­fi­cers dis­charged (put in box)

On No­vem­ber 18, mag­is­trate Sarah De Sil­va dis­charged sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers who were ac­cused of ex­tort­ing a group of San­gre Grande busi­ness­men in 2023. Days lat­er on No­vem­ber 20, De Sil­va dis­charged five po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of ac­cept­ing a $30,000 bribe in Arou­ca, af­ter the po­lice failed to com­ply with the court’s in­struc­tions for time­ly prepa­ra­tion of the case.

Al­so on No­vem­ber 20, Mag­is­trate Ker­ri Hon­ore-Nar­ine dis­charged a 21-year-old Bel­mont man of rob­bery and as­sault charges when the po­lice failed to pro­vide wit­ness­es. The man was ac­cused of rob­bing a St James fur­ni­ture store in 2023.

On No­vem­ber 21, a Port of Spain mag­is­trate dis­missed charges against Shawn Brown who was ac­cused of break­ing the Port-of-Spain branch of Stan­dard’s Fur­ni­ture Store in 2021. The mat­ter was dis­missed as the po­lice com­plainant failed to com­ply with court di­rec­tives.

At­tor­ney: Cops not tak­ing cas­es se­ri­ous­ly

De­fence at­tor­ney Ul­ric Sker­ritt felt that po­lice com­plainants did not ap­proach case man­age­ment with the nec­es­sary se­ri­ous­ness, which re­sult­ed in mat­ters be­ing dis­missed.

Re­fer­ring to in­stances where he saw po­lice of­fi­cers join­ing vir­tu­al court hear­ings while they were still in their ve­hi­cles and wear­ing ca­su­al cloth­ing, Sker­ritt said sergeants and in­spec­tors at po­lice sta­tions had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that their sub­or­di­nates did not lapse in their du­ty.

“If they su­per­vise their of­fi­cers when they make cas­es and un­der­stand where the case is now, the court pros­e­cu­tors would de­cide that they need to come to or­der­ly rooms so they know the sta­tus of the mat­ter and where you’re go­ing with it, then this may not hap­pen.

“Un­less they take charge, the In­spec­tor and Sergeant of the sta­tion and the Court and Process Unit, this will con­tin­ue to hap­pen,” he said.

Sker­ritt added that staffing chal­lenges at the of­fice of the DPP could con­tribute to chal­lenges in case man­age­ment. The is­sues first arose in March 2023, when DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over what he de­scribed as “acute and chron­ic” staff short­ages.

Sker­ritt al­so re­ferred to is­sues where the pros­e­cu­tor in a mat­ter was changed caus­ing de­lays as the new at­tor­ney for the state would have to un­der­stand the file and de­tails on the mat­ter.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, at­tor­ney Bri­an Baig, who rep­re­sent­ed for­mer ac­cused Shawn Brown in a break­ing and en­ter­ing mat­ter, said re­peat­ed calls for dis­clo­sure from the pros­e­cu­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.

Baig, along with se­nior at­tor­neys Ian Brooks and Kei­th Scot­land, rep­re­sent­ed UWI stu­dents Nathanael John and Bri­an Richards fol­low­ing a heat­ed protest at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus’ south gate in 2018. The charges against both de­fen­dants were dis­missed on Ju­ly 9, 2020, when Scot­land’s no-case sub­mis­sion was up­held.

The case had been de­layed sev­er­al times when po­lice of­fi­cers failed to ap­pear be­fore the court.

Baig said such un­nec­es­sary de­lays were un­fair to per­sons ac­cused of crimes and placed them at ex­pense, but warned that the fail­ure of po­lice to at­tend court could in­cur even greater ex­pense in the long-term.

“They (clients) are left at great ex­pense ei­ther by pay­ing at­tor­neys or lost time from their jobs and they are un­able to have their names cleared un­til the mat­ter is dis­missed be­cause these per­sons are brought be­fore the court and act as a de­fen­dant.

“When these mat­ters are dealt with in the way that it has been dis­charged, the per­sons who will feel it af­ter is the tax­pay­er be­cause these per­sons now have a right to sue the State.”

Baig said he agreed with Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s rec­om­men­da­tions for fines to be in­curred against way­ward of­fi­cers.

Cops over­worked, un­pre­pared for court

Sker­ritt, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, said the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) failed at times to en­sure ba­sic ev­i­den­tiary re­quire­ments were met.

He said it was fair­ly easy for cit­i­zens to make al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against po­lice of­fi­cers due to per­son­al vendet­tas, but PSB of­fi­cers must make every at­tempt to in­ves­ti­gate such al­le­ga­tions.

“At the end of the day the of­fi­cer suf­fers be­cause the PSB isn’t do­ing the kind of en­quiries they ought to do.,” he said.

“I have found there are times they don’t do what they’re sup­posed to do be­cause they are quick to say, ‘Look this is an of­fi­cer, we are do­ing our work and putting him be­fore the courts’.”

He said there were in­stances where PSB in­ves­ti­ga­tors fol­lowed prop­er pro­to­cols and en­sured they were prop­er­ly pre­pared when charges were laid. This usu­al­ly hap­pened in cas­es where of­fi­cers sought guid­ance from the DPP on how to pro­ceed with charges.

An of­fi­cer as­signed to the PSB de­nied that mat­ters were rushed to ap­pease the pub­lic. He how­ev­er ad­mit­ted that the col­lapse of re­cent en­quiries in­volv­ing the 12 of­fi­cers was un­for­tu­nate and there is a need for the cur­rent man­age­ment of the unit to im­prove their ad­min­is­tra­tive skills.

Re­fer­ring to rec­om­men­da­tions to fine ab­sent po­lice of­fi­cers, the of­fi­cer said this was not a new sug­ges­tion and there were pro­vi­sions in leg­is­la­tion that could al­low of­fi­cers to be pe­nalised for fail­ing to fol­low their du­ties. He said the chal­lenge in in­sti­tut­ing such poli­cies is in en­forc­ing the rules that are al­ready there.

“The fail­ure to do things like at­tend court or sub­mit case files, these are se­ri­ous mat­ters that can be re­port­ed to the com­plaints di­vi­sion of the TTPS or even out­side the ser­vice to the PCA,” he said. “But it’s up to the TTPS lead­er­ship to make that work. It’s all about en­force­ment.”

The of­fi­cer said an­oth­er is­sue which can ham­per the at­ten­dance of po­lice com­plainants in court is over­work. While each of the ten po­lice di­vi­sions in T&T is equipped with doc­u­ment cen­tres which as­sist of­fi­cers in prepar­ing for court, it was not al­ways utilised ow­ing to con­flict­ing sched­ules with work de­tails and days off.

“Be­cause of the amount of crime in the coun­try a lot of the of­fi­cers are un­der strain. I have seen in­stances where of­fi­cers are de­tailed to work on cer­tain days when they should be in court and don’t get the chance to pre­pare them­selves prop­er­ly for tes­ti­mo­ny,” the of­fi­cer said.

He sug­gest­ed added steps and su­per­vi­sion be in­tro­duced to en­sure that the PSB in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed thor­ough­ly to en­sure max­i­mum chances of con­vic­tion.

He warned that fail­ure to do so would not en­cour­age pub­lic trust in the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to weed out cor­rup­tion with­in their ranks.

Con­tact­ed on Thurs­day, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land, SC, de­clined com­ment as he was un­fa­mil­iar with the de­tails. Scot­land, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the TTPS as part of his port­fo­lio, said he would re­view the mat­ter and re­spond at a lat­er time.

Last week, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the han­dling of the mat­ters. In the case of ex­tor­tion, dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion is al­ready un­der­way.

“Dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings have been ini­ti­at­ed against three of­fi­cers in con­nec­tion with the first case in­volv­ing sev­en of­fi­cers,” said Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher. “The in­quiry is on­go­ing and will ful­ly ex­am­ine any po­ten­tial breach­es of es­tab­lished poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to de­ter­mine if there has been any mis­con­duct or neg­li­gence.”

“The TTPS rec­og­nizes the se­ri­ous na­ture of these mat­ters,” the Com­mis­sion­er con­tin­ued. “As such, we are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that these is­sues are ad­dressed in ac­cor­dance with the full ex­tent of the law.”