Police officer charged in cooking oil theft case returns to court Monday
Published:Thursday | January 5, 2023 | 1:45 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
The police corporal implicated in a multimillion-dollar cooking oil theft is to return to St Catherine Parish Court on Monday for a bail application.
Detective Corporal Maurice Whittingham, 35, is charged with robbery with aggravation and kidnapping.
His co-accused, 34-year-old construction worker Michael Daley, is also facing similar charges.
The duo appeared in court Tuesday and were remanded until February 7.
Whittingham’s lawyer, Vincent Wellesley, is charging that his client was taken to court on Tuesday without his knowledge.
On Wednesday, he returned to court and asked the judge to bring his client’s case forward to facilitate an earlier bail application and the judge complied.
The February 7 date was fixed after the judge was informed that investigators are still probing the case, including searching for other suspects.
Allegations are that on Saturday, December 17, 2022, Whittingham and Daley, who was reportedly dressed in police paraphernalia, stopped a delivery truck along the Spanish Town Bypass in St Catherine.
The truck, which is owned by Seprod Limited, was laden with cooking oil valued at more than $3 million.
It is alleged that Whittingham approached the driver of the truck and asked about his data entry record and took him to a Honda motor car.
The truck, along with the sidemen, was then driven to an unknown location.
The truck was later located in the community of Thetford, which is located near Old Harbour.
A subsequent report was made and an investigation was launched, which resulted in the arrests of Whittingham and Daley.
Further investigation led to them being charged.