An investigation has been launched into an incident in which a 26-year-old woman trainee at the Police Training Academy in St James was allegedly raped by an instructor while she was asleep.

The incident occurred early yesterday inside the woman's cubicle, which she shares with two other trainees at the dormitory, a police report stated.

The Sunday Express was reliably informed that the suspect tendered his resignation from the Police Service, but up to yesterday was still on the compound of the academy.

A police source said the officer cannot recall what transpired.

He was removed from the trainee's cubicle early yesterday by two other instructors because he appeared intoxicated.

After the Police old mas and calypso competition concluded, the officer was drinking with several of his colleagues and trainees, a police source told the Sunday Express yesterday.

The trainee, police said, reported that she was asleep on her bed around 12.10 a.m., when she felt someone on top of her. She awoke to find one of her instructors raping her.

At the time of the incident, police said, the victim's two roommates were out in the yard cleaning up an area where a Carnival party took place earlier in the day, which Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs and other senior police officers had attended.

A report on the incident was made to a senior officer at the academy yesterday and the officer accompanied the woman to the St Clair Police Station, where an official report was made around 7 a.m. The victim was taken to the St James Medical Complex, where she was treated and later discharged.

Woman Sgt Maria Diaz, of the Belmont Police Station, was first mandated to investigate the incident, but the matter was later handed over to Insp Harvey Jawahir, of the Port of Spain CID.