The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

POLICE are investigating allegations of inappropriate conduct by an immigration officer towards a female detainee at the Detention Centre, the Department of Immigration said yesterday.

In a statement yesterday, the department said the officer is now on administrative leave pending the completion of the investigation. The statement said the incident is alleged to have taken place at the Detention Centre’s Special Facility for Women and Children.

Police were summoned after a complaint by the woman detainee, according to the department.

When contacted by The Tribune yesterday, Immigration Director William Pratt would not offer any additional details other than to say that the incident allegedly happened on Sunday during the “midnight shift”, which he said ended at 8am yesterday.

“We take our complaints seriously so we have the police doing an investigation and once the report is complete, we’ll be able to elaborate on it,” Mr Pratt told The Tribune. “But as it is right now it’s under investigation.”

Mr Pratt would not release the nationality of the alleged victim, and neither would he reveal the nature of the alleged “inappropriate conduct”. Attempts by The Tribune to get information from various police officials, including Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle of the Central Detective Unit, were unsuccessful up to press time.

The Department of Immigration’s statement on the alleged incident said: “Consequent upon a complaint by a female detainee at the Detention Centre’s Special facility for Women and Children about inappropriate conduct by an immigration officer, the police have been called in to conduct a criminal investigation.

“The officer has been placed on administrative leave pending completion of the investigation.”

In February, a Jamaican woman who alleged she was raped by an immigration officer last December filed a civil suit against the government seeking damages for battery, assault, false imprisonment and the breach of her constitutional rights. In a writ filed in the Supreme Court, the attorney general, minister and director of immigration and commissioner of police were all accused of being liable for the alleged unlawful conduct.

Immigration officer Norman Bastian, who is facing rape charges over the allegation, was named as the fifth defendant.

Bastian, 53, was charged in February in connection with the alleged sexual attack.