Police stress that a 5 year old boy never slept in a cell with his parents in Tavua

The Fiji Police Force strongly refutes a newspaper article headlined “Boy sleeps in cell”, and stresses that the mother and the boy in question were never kept in a cell as the officers quickly made arrangements for them to stay in the Tavua Police Conference room where they spent the night and were also allowed to move around in the Station.

Chief Operations Officer, ACP Livai Driu says the Fiji Times article claims that the five-year-old child was forced to sleep overnight at the Tavua Police Station which was never the case.

He further says they would like to clarify that on the 30th of March at around 6.30pm, the child’s parents were brought in for questioning in relation to a pending case of an alleged assault.

The two were brought in a police vehicle and at no time was their son with them whilst they were being escorted to the Tavua Police Station, or during the questioning process which ended after 9pm where they were formally charged.

ACP Driu adds upon the completion of the questioning process, the child was seen at the station who was brought in by a relative.

He adds Police officers then advised both parents that their son could not stay with them overnight and asked that he return with the relative as they would be kept in custody overnight and be produced the next day.

The Chief Operations Officer says the officers did all they could to safely return the child to the relative, who refused and therefore agreed for both mother and child to stay together.

ACP Driu also says they would like to assure members of the public that if there was any truth to the claims of abuse of authority, it would have been investigated and the officer(s) responsible dealt with.

However the claims made in the article were false and they would like to set the record straight.

Questions have been sent to the Fiji Times and we are awaiting their response.