No charges for Alicia Trapp – but the evidence was there, Commissioner says

By Aaron Humes: The putative complainant against Police Constable Alicia Trapp, Minister of Infrastructure Development and Housing Julius Espat, is reportedly forgoing charges and hoping that the cross-complaint and related matters will be dropped.

But Commissioner of Police Chester Williams backs his investigators, who obtained evidence that he says may well have been enough to sustain an assault charge. He also bluntly dismissed her attorney, Orson Elrington’s claims.

The Commissioner confirmed that while it was not his decision, P.C. Trapp’s commander in Belmopan decided to take her off the Cabinet meeting security detail, but he did not directly confirm the charge that she had been assigned to the midnight-to-eight relief shift, which Elrington said was part of the Commissioner’s own vendetta.

To Elrington, the Commissioner directed this warning: “I don’t know why her attorney continues to make an issue. The more he speaks, seemingly on her behalf, the more he sinks her into a hole. I believe it’s time for her attorney to shut the hell up and allow the process to occur. Let me say that in my letter to the attorney yesterday I simply outlined the law to him and pointed out to him as well that the evidence is not there against Mr. Espat but on the contrary a lot of evidence is there against her committing assault upon the Hon. Julius Espat. Fortunately for her, Mr Espat informed me this morning that he doesn’t wish to proceed with court action against her at this time and so based on that she will not be charged criminally as outlined in the letter to her attorney yesterday. I think what Mr Espat is hoping for is that she and her attorney retract their statement and based on that then he will determine if he will proceed with the matter before the court.”

On the matter of interplay between Trapp and Espat, Commissioner Williams said his officers found nothing indicating any use of curse words by the Minister and disagreed that anyone was being intimidated into supporting Espat’s version of events: “Like I said before, if you step into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson, you expect to get knock the hell out; and you cannot expect that you’ll be pet and powdered and lotion there. She stepped into the political arena and she had an exchange of words with the minister. She put herself in that position. In terms of the Minister using curse words to her, there is no such thing in the statements that we recorded…I don’t think that those persons from whom we recorded statements had any fear. As a matter of fact, many of them were independent-minded people who were out there. So, I do not ascribe to the fact that people said what they said because they fear retribution from the minister. I don’t think so.”

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