Policewoman in jail

 A POLICE woman in full uniform, caught drunk and misbehaving during a major police operation in Mendi, Southern Highlands, has been sentenced to one month in hard labour at Bui-ebi jail.

Mendi district court found Const Josephine Mali of Poroma village in Nipa-Kutubu, guilty of getting drunk and behaving disorderly in public while on duty in full police uniform.

She was sentenced on Tuesday to jail term.

The court also recommended her dismissal from the police force.

Provincial police commander Supt Sibron Papoto said yesterday the Mendi police station commander caught Mali drunk in public last July 25, while other police personnel were carrying out roadblocks and foot patrols in Mendi.

Papoto said she was arrested, charged and locked up in the cell until she appeared in court.

He said Mali was one of the 200 police recruits from the province initiated by the Southern Highlands provincial government in 2010 and served four years in the province. 

“I welcome the decision of the district court and will do the same to other policemen and women if they drink alcohol during official working hours in full police uniform and behave in disorderly manner at public places,” Papoto said.

He said such disorderly behaviour in public by a law enforcing officer tarnished the good name of the police force and other hard-working policemen and women in the province.

“I will not tolerate or entertain such behaviour from my policemen and women in the province while on duty and where alcohol is totally banned,” he said.

Papoto said policemen and women, as law enforcers in the province, must live and lead by good example to the people they are serving.

He warned police personnel not to take the law into their own hands and brag to the people they are above the law.