Four officers charged with misbehaviour in public office

Four po­lice of­fi­cers ap­peared be­fore the San Fer­nan­do Mas­ters’ Court on Wednes­day charged with of­fences re­lat­ing to mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

The mat­ter was heard by Mas­ter Bethelmy and was post­poned to April 23.

The of­fi­cers charged are Po­lice Con­sta­ble Mervyn Eligon, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Daawu­ud Mo­hammed, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Alexsi Har­riper­sad and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Akiel Smith.

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Eligon was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice with in­tent to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice, and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice with in­tent to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice by false­ly rep­re­sent­ing that he re­cov­ered a firearm.

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Eligon, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Mo­hammed, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Har­riper­sad and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Smith were al­so joint­ly charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice by con­spir­a­cy with in­tent to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice by con­ceal­ing the find­ing of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion.

Bail with sure­ty was grant­ed as fol­lows: Po­lice Con­sta­ble Eligon $275,000 to cov­er all charges, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Mo­hammed $150,000, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Har­riper­sad $150,000 and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Smith $150,000.

Po­lice stat­ed that on Jan­u­ary 5 a re­port was made to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau re­gard­ing the con­duct of the of­fi­cers.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions stat­ed that on De­cem­ber 31 Po­lice Con­sta­ble Eligon went to a lo­ca­tion in South Trinidad af­ter mid­night with a par­ty of of­fi­cers in­clud­ing Po­lice Con­sta­ble Har­riper­sad, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Mo­hammed and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Smith.

Po­lice re­port­ed that dur­ing a search of the premis­es of­fi­cers found a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion in­side a black plas­tic bag se­cured with­in a stor­age box in a garage area.

Of­fi­cers lat­er re­turned to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion and re­port­ed that noth­ing il­le­gal had been found dur­ing the ex­er­cise and made an en­try in the sta­tion di­ary.

Po­lice stat­ed that of­fi­cers lat­er made an en­try al­leg­ing that a firearm was found at an­oth­er lo­ca­tion.

Po­lice stat­ed that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard SC ad­vised that the of­fi­cers be charged.