A want­ed pris­on­er, who al­most lit­er­al­ly 're­turned from the dead' af­ter he was shot by po­lice over six years ago, yes­ter­day won a law­suit against his shoot­ers.As it turns out, the po­lice of­fi­cers may now find them­selves in 'hot wa­ter' af­ter they were re­ferred to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).Nigel "Du Four" May­ers and his friend Dex­ter Bur­nett, Jus­tice Am­ri­ka Ti­wary-Red­dy found, were un­armed when the group of po­lice of­fi­cers opened fire on them.

Bur­nett died in the shoot­ing, but May­ers, who was shot sev­er­al times in the chest, was tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.He was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival and was tak­en to the mor­tu­ary where he mirac­u­lous­ly sat up and re­gained con­scious­ness while his bat­tered body lay on a gur­ney.It is a tale which has re­ver­ber­at­ed through­out the Po­lice Ser­vice of a dead man wak­ing up af­ter he had been shot 'dead'-rid­dled with bul­lets from the bar­rel of an Is­raeli made Galil ri­fle.

But the shoot­ing in­ci­dent on Oc­to­ber 10, 2004 and the sto­ry of May­ers' mirac­u­lous re­cov­ery were re­vealed in ev­i­dence in the tri­al be­fore Ti­wary-Red­dy.At­tor­neys Wayne Sturge and Lemuel Mur­phy ap­peared for the claimant, while Is­rael Khan, SC, and Kei­th Scot­land rep­re­sent­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.In a draft judg­ment at the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day, they ruled that the of­fi­cers had used ex­ces­sive and un­rea­son­able force when they shot May­ers and Bur­nett.

She di­rect­ed that the mat­ter be sent to the PSC."Hav­ing re­gard to this court's com­ments on the con­duct of the po­lice, I here­by di­rect that a copy of this judg­ment be sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion for trans­mis­sion to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion for its con­sid­er­a­tion and for such ac­tion as it may deem ap­pro­pri­ate," Ti­wary-Red­dy said.

She had ear­li­er found on the facts that when the of­fi­cers shot at May­ers and Bur­nett, the civil­ians were un­armed.Snr Supt Franklyn Ed­wards and Ag In­sps Hu­bert Sharpe and Garfield Stew­art tes­ti­fied for the de­fen­dants, while May­ers was the on­ly wit­ness to his own law­suit.The shoot­ing took place at Mount Marie in To­ba­go.The of­fi­cers had gone in search of the men who were want­ed on sus­pi­cion of armed rob­bery. The judge or­dered that dam­ages be paid to the civil­ian and the quan­tum be as­sessed in a sub­se­quent hear­ing.The de­fen­dants were al­so or­dered to pay the claimant's costs.