Fresh start for 2 cops

On Tuesday, the British-based Privy Council ordered their immediate release from prison. Although Bhola and Wiggins lost their appeals against conviction, the Law Lords found that they should have been out of prison since October 2005.

Wiggins is a very lucky man. After he was charged he officially retired from the Police Service on June 30, 1997 and got all his benefits. He had been a policeman for 24 and a half years. But Bhola was not lucky. He served 30 years in the service and because he lost his final appeal, he also lost his gratuity and pension as a policeman.

Wiggins, 56, is married with two children. When Sunday Newsday caught up with him on Thursday in Port-of-Spain, Wiggins said the allegation made against him was not true. "I don’t hold people in mind. Imagine the man who charged me was my friend for years. I cannot say what the motive was, but there is a similar matter before the Couva Magistrate’s Court with the same people."

Wiggins said he was always confident that he would have won his case. But his world came crashing down with the jury’s verdict and then the sentence of six years imposed by Justice Melville Baird. "I was shocked when the sentence was imposed. But I saw this as an opportunity, a turning point. In a sense, it was a message I was getting from God to walk His road. I always believed in God. I did not have that close connection with God before. In prison, I got baptised and I started to follow the Lord."

What about his stay in prison? He described it as a very humiliating experience. "From the time you enter the prison door, your life as a human being has been more or less taken away. While at the Golden Grove Prison, I heard a supervisor say he does not see a prisoner as a human being. The treatment you get from some prison officers, you wonder if they themselves have families, if they ever see themselves in the position of a prisoner."

Wiggins continued, "Some prison officers feel when you come in there, you come in there for punishment, and not as punishment. Prison officers don’t care about prisoners. As far as they are concerned, prisoners do not exist. The prison officers must assist prisoners," he declared.

Wiggins cited two examples of advantage on the part of the prison officers. He said in 2004, a prison officer threatened a prisoner with a gun, only for him to apologise the next day. Then in 2005, a prison officer threw a prisoner’s Qu’ran in the slop pail. To add insult to injury, the prison authorities called on the prisoner to apologise.

Wiggins said when he was in prison, he was among the population at the Remand Yard at the Golden Grove Prison. After he lost his appeal in 2002, he was moved to the Maximum Security Prison. While there, he learnt about art, tutored by calypsonian Bill Trotman, whom Wiggins described as doing a fantastic job for the prisoners.

Wiggins also did religious education. Last Tuesday, he was in his cell, reading a copy of Newsday, when a prison officer came and told him to pack his things. The prisoner asked the officer, "Pack and go where?" He wasn’t aware of the Privy Council’s decision.

Wiggins said he was accustomed to packing and moving, so it was not strange. He was taken into Port-of-Spain where a prison officer read a document from the Privy Council saying that he and Bhola should be freed.

"I was so happy. I gave the officer my wife’s cell number. When they called her, she was already in a taxi on her way to our home in Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas. She got out on the Beetham Highway, and walked towards the bus route and headed back into town."

Asked how he felt when he walked out of the prison walls, Wiggins responded, "I felt great. I wasn’t expecting to be released until Decem-ber 2006. I was so shocked, that I did not eat that night. The next morning, I had some sausages and eggs, I love my Lipton, and I had whole wheat bread."

What is the next step? Wiggins said he does not intend to think about the last ten years of his live. He is planning to get a job in the construction industry shortly.

While at the Maximum Security Prison, Wiggins said he met attorney Jagdeo Singh who was serving a seven-year sentence for bribery. He said Singh did a lot for him and Bhola when there seemed to be problems with their Privy Council appeal.

So, it was not surprising that the first person he called when he got out of prison was Singh, who was also freed by the Privy Council last year.

Bhola was present during the interview but wanted no photographs taken of him. Bhola, 51, lives in California. He does not know what he will do, having spent 30 years in the police service.

"I was really upset and disgusted with the whole judicial system. I felt I was going to be freed after the trial. I was innocent. I was shocked by the decision of the jury." Bhola continued, "That first day in prison was humiliating. The prison officer came and told me to strip in the reception area in front of everybody. I had to squat and cough. Being a police officer, it was really dehumanising to go through that."

Bhola added, "Prison is a hard life. The diet, the airing, they air you for one hour a day when and if they feel to do so. If the rain falls, there is no airing."

Bhola said he was in his cell on Tuesday when a prison officer came and told him to pack. When he was sent to the Port-of-Spain prison, he learnt that he was going to be free. "I was ready to go and my daughter was there to meet me."

That first night was a night to remember. He ate pork (which he loves), macaroni pie, salad and drank whiskey. Married and a father of three, Bhola said he was set up and framed in 1996. But he is glad to be free again.