Ex-cop who forced couple to have sex loses pension appeal

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

A for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer who was dis­missed for forc­ing a cou­ple to have sex in his pres­ence has lost his fi­nal ap­peal at the Privy Coun­cil, as he chal­lenged the de­nial of his pen­sion and gra­tu­ity.

The charges stemmed from a 2000 in­ci­dent in which a cou­ple re­port­ed that while seat­ed in a parked car near the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah around 11.30 pm, Chad An­toine ap­proached them and de­mand­ed that they have sex­u­al in­ter­course in his pres­ence. They com­plied but lat­er re­port­ed the mat­ter, trig­ger­ing dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings.

An­toine was found guilty of dis­cred­itable con­duct and dis­missed fol­low­ing a hear­ing be­fore a three-mem­ber dis­ci­pli­nary tri­bunal.

An­toine, who joined the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in 1980, ap­pealed the tri­bunal’s de­ci­sion, but the Pub­lic Ser­vice Ap­peal Board re­ject­ed his chal­lenge in 2004.

He lat­er filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion claim­ing he was de­nied equal­i­ty of treat­ment by be­ing re­fused re­tire­ment ben­e­fits af­ter his dis­missal. He ar­gued that a col­league who had been found guilty of three dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences re­ceived re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.

In June 2020, High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed dis­missed the claim, rul­ing that An­toine was not en­ti­tled to re­tire­ment ben­e­fits un­der the Pen­sions and Gra­tu­ities Rules of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, which per­mit the with­hold­ing of ben­e­fits where an of­fi­cer’s ser­vice is bro­ken by sus­pen­sion or dis­missal.

The judge al­so found that An­toine failed to present ev­i­dence to sup­port his claim re­gard­ing his col­league. Al­though the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al did not di­rect­ly ad­dress the al­le­ga­tion, Jus­tice Mo­hammed said An­toine still had to prove his case, adding: “It would be reck­less of this Court if it ac­cepts the tes­ti­mo­ny of the Claimant with­out more on such a fun­da­men­tal is­sue.”

In De­cem­ber 2024, Ap­pel­late Judges Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er, Vasheist Kokaram and Mal­colm Holdip dis­missed An­toine’s ap­peal, rul­ing that Jus­tice Mo­hammed’s rea­son­ing could not be fault­ed and that the com­plaints were de­void of mer­it.

Ear­li­er this week, three Law Lords of the Privy Coun­cil re­fused An­toine spe­cial leave to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal. A no­tice on the court’s web­site read: “Spe­cial leave is re­fused be­cause the ap­peal is de­void of mer­it.”