Missing court transcripts: three cops can't face trial

A DECADE ago, four police officers were charged with misconduct in office.

Four and a half years ago, three of them were committed to stand trial before a judge and jury.

But key documents from the Judiciary which will allow the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to file an indictment against the officers are yet to be produced.

In an interview, PC Dexter Edwards, speaking on behalf of his colleagues Sgt Lester Garcia and Cpl Sheldon Peterson, said the slow wheels of justice were too much to bear. Peterson is close to retirement.

Edwards said they were charged in October 2014 and had been suspended from duty on three-quarter pay. He said the preliminary enquiry began before senior magistrate Indrani Cedeno in the Arima Magistrates Court on March 24, 2016, and with their consent, the matter was transferred to the Port of Spain Magistrates Court on May 24, 2018.

Cedeno, then assigned to the Tobago Magistrates Court, said she wanted to to deal with both matter at the same location for convenience.

The same magistrate, now a High Court judge, was presiding over the preliminary enquiry against 11 men charged with the May 2014 murder of special prosecutor Dana Seetahal.

Cedeno heard the case against the police officers and the enquiry against the men charged with Seetahal's murder on the same days.

The Judiciary has not been able to meet a request by the Office of the DPP to supply the transcripts of the evidence and exhibits which were tendered in Seetahal's case. Instead, the Judiciary has supplied the Office of the DPP with an electronic copy of the proceedings.

But DPP Roger Gaspard, SC, insists on having the actual documents to file the indictment in keeping with the provisions of the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act.

In a statement in May, the Judiciary said for matters before December 2023, Section 25 of the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiry) Act requires that committal bundles are transmitted to the DPP electronically.

On December 12, 2023, the Judiciary published a practice direction which allows for the electronic filing of indictments, and republished it in May to counter the DPP's interpretation of the Indictable Offences (Preliminary Enquiries) Act.

In January 3, 2020, Edwards, Garcia and Peterson were committed to stand trial. Four days later, the officers asked for a copy of the transcripts of the committal bundle to the Clerk of the Peace in the Arima Magistrates Court with the intention of challenging the magistrate's decision before the High Court.

Edwards said there was no acknowledgement of their request and on January 9, 2020, one of their attorneys wrote to the magistracy's registrar requesting a copy of the transcripts. Again there was no response.

On August 24, 2021, an online request was made for a copy of the transcripts through the Department of Court Administration, at the Hall of Justice, in Port of Spain. There was no response.

The officers turned to the Office of the Ombusdsman for help on January 20, 2023 and received an acknowledgment on February 2, 2023 which said the transcripts were being prepared.

They also wrote again to the Port of Spain Magistrates Court requesting the audio and transcripts in June 2023 and finally got a response, with a price tag of close to $6,000 for the bundle.

But when they received the package days later, there were dates of their hearings which indicated  no recordings had been done.

"I was shocked, confused, becauseit aroused my suspicion that something was wrong with the matter," Edwards said.

He said the information from the magistracy showed no reference to hearings in 2018.

In an attempt to clarify the matter, Edwards said they  wrote again to the magistrates court in November 2023, renewing their request for the missing transcripts, but there was no response.

An official at the Office of the Ombudsman told them in February that their file had been sent to the Office of the DPP and by April the DPP's office had sent the file back to the Arima Magistrates Court. They were not told why.

In May 2023, the Judiciary in response to a April 2023 letter from their attorney, Sophia Chote, SC, said the committal bundle was expected to be sent to the Office of the DPP by May 2023.

In a separate letter to the magistracy's registrar in October 2023, Chote said the "inordinate and unreasonable delay" would affect her clients' fair-trial rights.

She said her clients had instructed her to file a lawsuit against the Judiciary for its "failure and/or refusal to send of cause the committal bundle to be sent to the DPP."

The proposed lawsuit will also seek a declaration that the officers' rights to the protection of the law was contravened by the failure of the Judiciary to send the committal bundle to the DPP, as well as compensation for breach of their constitutional rights.