’Oh Gosh give we a bligh nah!’

That was the plea to members of the media by relatives of four policemen who appeared in court yesterday charged with misconduct in public office.

The officers, two corporals and two constables, all hail from the Southern Division Task Force and were said to have intercepted two men during a robbery at Club Avenue 5, Duncan Village, San Fernando, on August 21, after they received a call that a lone gunman-armed with a shotgun had walked into the club.

The officers are alleged to have beaten one of the men and were allegedly caught on tape shoving some of the money that the bandits nearly escaped with, in their pockets.

The four officers-Cpl Deopersad Jankeynanan, 60, Cpl Kishan Harrysingh, 44, PC Anslem Drakes, 38, and PC Reagan Ramanan-appeared before Magistrate Anna Ryan in the Port of Spain 4A Court yesterday.

Jankeynanan, who was represented by defence attorney Chaitram Sinanan, was charged with both unlawfully beating the prisoner and failing to hand over an undisclosed sum of money to investigators of the robbery. Sinanan, who also represented Harrysingh, asked for all disclosure in the matter, including the surveillance tape. Harrysingh was charged with failing to hand over the money and handed over his expired passport to the arresting officer Sgt Kirk Thomas of the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau (ACIB) yesterday.

Drakes was unrepresented and was charged with failing to hand over the money to his superiors. He told Magistrate Ryan that he did not hand over his passport because it had expired ten years ago but Ryan ordered that he hand it over any way. Ramanan was charged with unlawfully beating the prisoner, Mark Austin. He was represented by attorney Kevin Ratiram.

The men’s current bail of $150,000 each, on which they were placed by Justice of the Peace Ackbar Khan on August 28, was allowed to continue, along with the conditions that they surrender their passport and report to the police station once a week.

The four men were ordered to reappear in the San Fernando Police Station on September 8.

After the matter was adjourned the officers found ways to avert the media and even sent out ’scouts’ to make sure that there was no one awaiting their departure from the courthouse.

A homemade shotgun and $38,000 were said to have been recovered from the club after the incident and three men are said to be assisting police in their investigations.