The Po­lice Ser­vice has con­firmed that a Po­lice Con­sta­ble was grant­ed bail with sure­ty in the sum of $500,000 by a Jus­tice of the Peace (JP) and will face the courts in Sep­tem­ber, while a Woman Po­lice Con­sta­ble is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port of Spain Mag­is­trate to­day, af­ter they were both charged with sev­er­al of­fences, in­clud­ing Mis­be­hav­iour in Pub­lic Of­fice.

The of­fi­cial state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice re­ports that 33-year-old PC ADRI­AN WARD (last at­tached to the West­ern Di­vi­sion), and 47-year-old WPC CHERYL GIB­SON (last at­tached to the Port of Spain Di­vi­sion), were charged with the of­fences fol­low­ing ad­vice re­ceived from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard SC, on Sat­ur­day 13 Au­gust 2022.

Both PC Ward and WPC Gib­son were charged joint­ly with four counts of Mis­be­hav­iour in Pub­lic Of­fice:

   (i) Cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing an il­le­gal firearm;

   (ii) Cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing 15 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion,

   (iii) Cor­rupt­ly so­lic­it­ing the sum of $30,000 and

   (iv) Cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing the sum of $30,000. 

In ad­di­tion, PC Ward with one count of mon­ey laun­der­ing, and WPC Gib­son was charged with two counts of mon­ey laun­der­ing.

The TTPS says PC Ward ap­peared be­fore JP Abrahim Ali on Sun­day 14 Au­gust 2022, was grant­ed bail and or­dered to ap­pear be­fore the Port of Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court, on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2022.

WPC Gib­son will ap­pear in court to­day, Mon­day 15 Au­gust 2022.

The TTPS re­lease re­ports that a male vic­tim re­port­ed to po­lice that on Au­gust 8, 2022, he was at his Port of Spain work­place when one fe­male of­fi­cer and two male of­fi­cers, in uni­form, en­tered and con­duct­ed a search. The of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found an il­le­gal pis­tol loaded with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 15 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion in the man’s pos­ses­sion. The man claimed one of the male of­fi­cers took pos­ses­sion of the firearm and then al­leged­ly de­mand­ed the sum of $30,000 from him to forego charg­ing him.

The vic­tim, who be­came fear­ful for his life, hand­ed over the sum to the of­fi­cer. On that same date, the male of­fi­cer hand­ed the firearm and sum of mon­ey over to the fe­male of­fi­cer.

A re­port was made to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) about the in­ci­dent on that same date and an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched. 

Ex­er­cis­es in the Port of Spain and West­ern Di­vi­sions on Tues­day 9 Au­gust 2022, spear­head­ed by W/Snr. Supt. Suzette Mar­tin and su­per­vised by Supt. Mon­trichard and ASP Birch, re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of the two po­lice of­fi­cers.

Both PC Ward and WPC Gib­son were charged by PC Bradley Mar­cellin of the PSB, on Sun­day 14 Au­gust 2022.