Drama at Magistrates’ Court

MEMBERS of the Police Court and Process Branch turned up at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday to find new security arrangements in place and an MTS guard manning the gates through which prisoners enter and exit.

This caused a major furore among police officers yesterday. At times, police officers and MTS personnel were engaged in a battle of words.

It was only after the intervention of head of the Court and Process Branch, Senior Supt Wayne Gilbert, that the situation was brought under control and the police were given the keys to the prisoners’ gate once again.

According to reports, the decision to institute the new arrangements came from new court area manager Zorina Ali. Among the decisions taken was that an MTS guard would be responsible for the gate where prisoners pass. That gate, according to reports, must remain locked at all times.

The gate was also used by police officers, some of whom refused to pass through the security scanners at the northern and southern sections of the courthouse.

Even staff members of the court passed through the gate, making it a free-for-all.

With the new arrangements in place, police officers had no choice but to pass through the security scanners. When police officers turned up in court yesterday, they met the gate locked and an MTS guard in charge. Then the bacchanal began and tension rose between the police and the MTS personnel.

When the Amalgamated Prison vans arrived at the court with the prisoners, the police officers took a very long time to off-load them. When the various courts convened at 9 am, there were no prisoners in the holding cages.

At the Eighth Court, Chief Magis-trate Sherman Mc Nicolls looked frustrated when the prisoners, all facing murder charges, were not brought. “It seems that we may not get anything done today,” Mc Nicolls told the court.

Theodore Guerra SC told the Chief Magistrate that the police were locked in the building. “It seems that somebody attached to the court has the key outside. Suppose a prisoner escapes from the court, the police are locked in downstairs. This is a fascist act on the part of the person in charge of the building,” Guerra added.

Court prosecutor Sgt Winston Dillon then had to go downstairs to ensure the prisoners were brought before the Chief Magistrate. The situation was the same in other courts, before the prisoners crawled into the rooms.

During the ordeal, Senior Supt Gilbert appeared at the court and held talks with various officials. He emerged sometime later and told Newsday that everything had been settled.

He said the police would continue to hold the keys to the main gate, but was adamant that the gate would remain locked at all times.

Gilbert admitted that a lot of unauthorised persons were passing through that gate and not subjecting themselves to being scanned.

He said everyone would now be subjected to passing through the scanners. But one police officer who works in the building assured Newsday that this was not the end of the matter.