Wilson concerned about prison service morale amid Hadeed allegations

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

For­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son says he is con­cerned about the morale of the prison ser­vice af­ter act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe was sent on leave amidst al­le­ga­tions that he gave pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to de­tained busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Wil­son, who served as com­mis­sion­er from No­vem­ber 2017 to No­vem­ber 2019, warned against spec­u­lat­ing over the cir­cum­stances be­hind Cor­raspe be­ing sent on leave, stress­ing that he was no longer in a po­si­tion to con­firm or de­ny the al­le­ga­tions be­ing made against him.

He, how­ev­er, not­ed that such al­le­ga­tions were trou­bling to him, as they could bring the prison ser­vice in­to dis­re­pute, as he was con­cerned that they could dam­age the morale of of­fi­cers.

Wil­son, there­fore, hoped that the pub­lic would avoid mak­ing as­sump­tions or com­ing to their own con­clu­sions be­fore the full facts of the sit­u­a­tion were dis­closed.

“As a per­son whose heart is still in the job, I would be con­cerned about what’s hap­pen­ing.

“I am con­cerned be­cause this is not the first time some­thing like that has hap­pened with a com­mis­sion­er be­ing sent on leave and I know the of­fi­cers and the pub­lic would be con­cerned.

“I don’t want to spec­u­late what tran­spired, but I think the im­por­tant thing is to get back that morale for the of­fi­cers to com­fort the pris­on­ers in terms of them feel­ing there is some lev­el of in­ter­est in their well-be­ing and it is im­por­tant to get to the bot­tom of what tran­spired, but to me what is most im­por­tant is the T&T Prison Ser­vice and get­ting back that morale from those who may feel be­wil­dered from what has hap­pened.”

When asked if an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is usu­al­ly ini­ti­at­ed au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in such a sit­u­a­tion where an of­fi­cer is ac­cused of im­pro­pri­ety, Wil­son said such a re­sponse was usu­al­ly done by the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, which acts as the line min­istry for the prison ser­vice, de­pend­ing on what in­for­ma­tion they had on the al­le­ga­tions.

“If the min­is­ter and the PS found it nec­es­sary to take ac­tion, then they would have the in­for­ma­tion to take ac­tion.”

He main­tained that while he was not privy to the de­tails of what hap­pened, spe­cial care was need­ed when ac­com­mo­dat­ing “high-pro­file” in­mates, as he con­tin­ued to call for the prison ser­vice to di­rect­ly ad­dress is­sues of morale.

“All we saw in the press was there was some in­di­ca­tion that pref­er­en­tial treat­ment was be­ing giv­en, I think with the as­so­ci­a­tion com­ing to­geth­er and look­ing at the sit­u­a­tion that what is need­ed quick­ly is to boost the morale of the of­fi­cers and not make the prison ser­vice look a par­tic­u­lar way.

“My con­cern is how fast the prison re­cov­ers from this whole in­ci­dent and I guess the Min­is­ter (of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty) may or may not give fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der sev­er­al times on yes­ter­day, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

Ef­forts were al­so made to con­tact Cor­raspe via phone and What­sApp, but no re­sponse was re­ceived.

Ques­tions sent to the T&T Prison Ser­vice cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions spokesper­son via What­sApp and email re­ceived no re­sponse.

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (POA), Ger­ard Gor­don, de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter, as did for­mer com­mis­sion­ers De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar and Den­nis Pul­chan.