Prison officers, Coast Guard clash

The Prison Officers Association is now making renewed appeal for its own launch and jetty to the island prison.

According to reports, after a confrontation between senior prison officers and members of the Coast Guard concerning the prisoners’ schedule, the boat was called back to port and both prison officers and prisoners were ordered off. The confrontation then became heated, and threats of a show of arms were reportedly made.

The prisoners were then returned to the Port-of-Spain prison.

Efforts to contact the Prisons Commissioner were futile, but acting secretary of the Prison Officers Association, Kenneth Mathison, confirmed the incident and his organisation has repeated its call for its own jetty and boat.

"Since our launch was taken from us during the National Alliance for Reconstruction regime, we have been lobbying for a return of our launch and our own place of embarkment and disembarkation. All we are getting are promises, even recently by Junior Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds.

"But we hope with this new development it will be accelerated. We are perturbed by the situation but saw the constant tension among the officers, and foresaw something like this happening. We are trained to deal with prisoners and should nothing be done, this situation will happen again. We want our own."

Mathison said his association would be investigating the allegations that guns were drawn.