Towering at just under six feet tall, Alison Woods-Dolloway is a beacon of knowledge when it comes to managing a broad spectrum of serious crimes in five police stations around Port of Spain. She has the demanding job of acting assistant superintendent of police. Now, as a lawyer also, Woods-Dolloway sees herself as "a minister of justice."
Woods-Dolloway has to monitor the progress of all serious crimes as well as the competency of the investigations in the communities of Besson Street, Central Police Station, Woodbrook, St Clair and Belmont.
Daily, as the acting ASP in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Criminal Records Office (CID/CRO), she liaises with the inspectors in charge of crime of the five police stations to be briefed on new cases, progress on pending cases, cold cases and any other issues which may arise.
The last girl of 14 siblings, Woods-Dolloway, 49, epitomises confidence and professionalism on the job.
From her well-tailored grey patterned skirt suit, pearl earrings, with matching pearl string for her facemask, Woods-Dolloway easily commanded the respect of junior officers as she walked along the corridors of Police Headquarters in Port of Spain on August 3.
She was a natural model, as Newsday's chief photographer Jeff Mayers realised when he took her outside her second-floor office for a photoshoot of the colonial building which was destroyed during the 1990 attempted coup.
He didn't know she had been also a top performer at several beauty pageants, including Miss Trinidad and Tobago in 1993.
Coming from Les Coteaux, Tobago, which to this day carries the stigma of witchcraft and folklore of Gang Gang Sara, the West African witch who was blown from her home in Africa across the sea to Tobago and landed quite safely at the tiny village, Woods-Dolloway is proud of her heritage.
[caption id="attachment_905944" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Insp Alison Woods-Dolloway at her office at Police Headquarters, in Port of Spain. As an officer and new lawyer, Woods-Dolloway sees herself as "a minister of justice". - Photo by Jeff K. Mayers[/caption]
She's even prouder of what she has achieved over the years.
After she graduated from Signal Hill Senior Comprehensive, her first job was as the front-office cashier at the Mt Irvine Bay Hotel, where she said she gained invaluable experience in the tourism industry and customer service.
On the urging of her elder sister, then a soldier, Woods-Dolloway applied to join the police in 1993, enrolled in July 1994 and graduated from the Police Barracks, as it was then called, in January 1995.
Her first assignment was in the Tobago Division, where she worked in the charge rooms of the Scarborough and then Crown Point police stations.
Within a year, she was selected to join the pilot project of the E999 rapid response unit based at St James Police Station.
And as a first responder she quickly learned on the job and absorbed all she could from the senior officers assigned on her shift.
In 1997, Woods-Dolloway was again
