AG: Need to weed out corrupt cops

ATTORNEY GENERAL John Jeremie yesterday declared that the new Police Complaints Authority (PCA) will have powers to investigate corruption within the Police Service and bring all corrupt cops to justice. Speaking during debate on the legislation in Parliament, the AG said the new PCA “will have a police power akin to which are now given to the Integrity Commission to prevent, detect and prosecute corruption” within the Police Service, and be able to investigate the private affairs of all police officers (including bank accounts). “The PCA has an important role to play in the prevention of police corruption and we think that if you deal with Police Service corruption, you deal with crime in some way,” he declared.

Jeremie said a recent study on police corruption in Britain showed that the system which is currently employed by the TT Police Service to investigate police corruption was “contrary to promoting police integrity, efficiency and good management. That sort of environment helps to foster police corruption and mismanagement,” the AG stated. He also told UNC MPs that if the Bills were defeated, the police would find it increasingly difficult to fight transnational crime,  particularly corruption. Pointe-a-Pierre MP Gillian Lucky claimed that Government needed a “national policing plan” and no police unit (such as the Anti-Corruption Bureau) should be under the control of the Office of Attorney General since there have been “complaints of leaks of persons being charged.”  Lucky was swiftly rebuked by Prime Minister Patrick Manning for accusing him of using former kidnap victim four-year-old Saada Singh to score political points.

“In the safe return of Saada Singh, we have to thank the Almighty working through police officers. I do not wish that the Member for Pointe-a-Pierre underestimate the role that the police played in that matter,” Manning said. The AG also told Lucky that the Constitutional Amendment Bill was the only one of the three bills which required a special majority for passage. Lucky called for the creation of a special police unit attached to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to investigate police corruption as well as legislation to categorise different types of murders and kidnapping. “This Government wants to fool the nation into believing that laws will help. What is the magical formula in the proposed legislation?” she asked.