Woman claims hearing against cop stalled

The officer in charge of the Police Public Relations and Complaints Department, Assistant Superintendent of Police Artis Davis insists that there is no conspiracy, but Gailene Weekes is convinced that her quest for justice is being stalled because the defendant is a cop.

The concerned grandmother told SEARCHLIGHT that her life has been turned upside down because of the police officer who fathered her daughter’s child in 1997. In 2001, Weekes’ daughter left the state and migrated to Canada to seek a better life and according to Weekes, “to get away from him”.{{more}}

Weekes recalled that after her daughter left, she (Weekes) found it difficult to get any support from the policeman for the child who had been left in her care. After much effort, Weekes said that one day she got upset and did something that she now regrets. “I went to the station and left my grandson for his father.”

While visiting her grandson at Easter last year, she said she noticed that the youngster was carrying a bruised, black and blue eye. “When I asked him what happened he told me that his father hit him after he tried to call out to me from a passenger van,” expressed the shocked and heart broken grandmother who blames herself for sending her grandson to live with his father.

Gailene told SEARCHLIGHT that she took her grandson to see the head teacher of his school and the officer in charge of the station where his father worked. “He even tried to rush me in the station.”

In a later incident, the officer is said to have kicked down Weekes’ door, cursed and even threatened Weekes’ son with a knife.

“A policeman was there and didn’t want to take a statement.” Gailene said that she took the matter to the Police Public Relations Department and spoke to Assistant Superintendent Davis and was assured that the matter would be addressed. When her grandson ran away from Green Hill where he was living and came to her, that was the final straw. Her daughter then sent a letter giving her custody of the child.

Gailene is however frustrated because even though her case with her ex-common law son-in-law has been filed three times since April 6, 2005, she has not received a hearing. Now she is wondering if the fact that she is complaining about a cop is working against her. “He already told me that I wouldn’t like what would happen to me if I cause him to lose his job,” she recalled.

Assistant Superintendent Davis however stated that once a case is in the hands of the Court, no police officer has the power to obstruct or pervert the wheels of justice. When questioned specifically about Weekes, Davis told SEARCHLIGHT that he could not remember the case particularly but made his office available to Weekes if she wishes to return to see him.

“There is no conspiracy in this matter,” he ended.