A Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, res­i­dent, who was charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act and lat­er freed, is su­ing the state for wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. In his pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter filed yes­ter­day through his at­tor­ney, Criston J Williams, Christo­pher Richard­son, of 35-37, Apart­ment A, Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, is al­leg­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal in­juries due to his im­pris­on­ment at the Gold­en Grove Prison for a pe­ri­od of 21 days."This has left a psy­cho­log­i­cal scar on my client (Richard­son), giv­en the fact he is a man of good char­ac­ter," the let­ter stat­ed.Be­fore his ar­rest he had no pend­ing or pre­vi­ous crim­i­nal mat­ters be­fore the courts, it was stat­ed.Richard­son, who was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers, of the Besson Street CID on Au­gust 23, was charged one day lat­er as be­ing a gang mem­ber un­der Sec­tion 5 (1) of the re­cent­ly passed An­ti-Gang Act.

The charges against Richard­son, along with 20 oth­er res­i­dents of Nel­son Street, were lat­er dropped on Sep­tem­ber 12, af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard told Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against them.Richard­son al­leges when he was ar­rest­ed he was told by po­lice he was part of a pro­fil­ing ex­er­cise."On or about Au­gust 24, to Richard­son's shock and dis­may, he was charged with be­ing a mem­ber of a gang, pur­suant to the An­ti-Gang Act," the let­ter added.In the let­ter, which list­ed act­ing Cpl Sankar, of the Besson Street CID, who charged the men, Richard­son al­leged he suf­fered the in­dig­ni­ty of be­ing charged with the of­fence and harsh con­di­tions at the prison.At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan al­so was list­ed as a par­ty to the claim.