Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The State has been or­dered to pay Vista­bel­la pip­efit­ter An­tho­ny Scott $217,500 in dam­ages af­ter po­lice mis­tak­en­ly ar­rest­ed him for an­oth­er An­tho­ny Scott in 2006. He spent 37 days in prison for his name­sake af­ter he was held for fail­ing to pay a court fine. Act­ing Mas­ter of the High Court, Martha Alexan­der, or­dered the State to pay Scott $150,000 with six per cent in­ter­est from June 2008, which amounts to $217,500. He was al­so award­ed $31,500 in le­gal costs. Alexan­der, in her sev­en-page judg­ment, stat­ed: "While there is a dearth of ev­i­dence be­fore me to ad­e­quate­ly as­sess dam­ages for false im­pris­on­ment, there is no doubt in my mind that the po­lice in ar­rest­ing (Scott) on the ba­sis of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty act­ed in an 'ar­bi­trary' man­ner in de­priv­ing (Scott) of the right to due process of law."

She said the po­lice, in do­ing so, "failed to make a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­quiry to en­sure as far as rea­son­ably pos­si­ble that they ar­rest­ed the right per­son." Alexan­der award­ed $150,000 to Scott for his im­pris­on­ment "as dam­ages to com­pen­sate for any dis­tress and in­con­ve­nience caused by the de­pri­va­tion of his lib­er­ty for that pe­ri­od." Scott, in his state­ment of claim, said he be­lieved when he was ar­rest­ed it was for the non-pay­ment of fines he was or­dered to pay when he plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of mar­ji­ua­na and co­caine on No­vem­ber 3, 2005. Scott was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 12, 2006 af­ter which he was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court. He was then re­mand­ed to the Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca. Scott in­struct­ed his moth­er, Venus Scott, to pay the fines he be­lieved he was ar­rest­ed for and he would be re­leased.

The woman paid $896.74 in fines and col­lect­ed two re­ceipts. On Au­gust 18, 2006 Scott was re­leased from prison and up­on in­spect­ing the re­ceipts he re­alised that the of­fences re­lat­ed to an­oth­er An­tho­ny Scott. Since he was not charged with or con­vict­ed of any of­fence in 2004 nor was he charged by PC Ra­mad­hin. In May 2007 Scott spoke to the of­fi­cer who ar­rest­ed him at the St Mar­garet's Po­lice Sta­tion and he con­firmed that he charged an­oth­er man named, An­tho­ny Scott, for pos­ses­sion of a de­vice and pos­ses­sion of co­caine. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Maria Bel­mar and Rene Singh, in­struct­ed by Ker­ri Ann Oliv­er­ie while Kevin Rati­ram ap­peared for Scott.