Camille Clarke

The for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Trinidad So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals (TSP­CA) North­ern Branch tried to re­pos­sess the prop­er­ty at Mu­cu­rapo Lands, St James, on Wednes­day morn­ing. This was the lat­est round in a long bat­tle be­tween two ri­val groups of an­i­mal-lovers.

Sakal Seemu­n­gal was chair­man of the TSP­CA?North­ern Branch from 1989 to De­cem­ber 2003 when the coun­cil of a new group, the T&TSP­CA, passed a res­o­lu­tion to re­voke the pow­ers of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the North­ern Branch.

In Jan­u­ary 2004, the TSP­CA tried to take back the premis­es at Mu­cu­rapo Lands, St James. The T&TSP­CA claimed that on Jan­u­ary 21, 2004, bailiffs, act­ing for Seemu­n­gal, en­tered with­out per­mis­sion, threat­ened to beat the trea­sur­er, Eileen Cogdell, shoved her and told her to leave.

Cogdell and the T&TSP­CA claimed dam­ages for as­sault, bat­tery, tres­pass, in­tim­i­da­tion and con­ver­sion of goods and brought a com­mon-law ac­tion against Seemu­n­gal. The fall­out be­tween the two groups stemmed from who could prop­er­ly op­er­ate the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the north­ern branch and hav­ing rights to the prop­er­ty.

Three years lat­er, High Court Judge Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in wrote to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al seek­ing his in­ter­ven­tion as to who was re­al­ly the char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion-the TSP­CA of the North­ern Branch or the T&TSP­CA. Gob­in said the two par­ties could not ar­rive at an agree­ment but she could not deal with the re­liefs un­til it had been de­cid­ed who was in charge.

Last week Wednes­day, the Court of Ap­peal threw out the eight-year-old claim. Staff at the T&TSP­CA on Wednes­day quick­ly closed the main gate and door and put up a sign say­ing: "Please be ad­vised that we are closed to­day. Sor­ry for the in­con­ve­nience."

Pet own­ers who vis­it­ed were up­set at the sit­u­a­tion. Bri­an Perkins, a dog own­er and vis­i­tor, said he came to drop off a stray dog in the hope it would be adopt­ed. "He is a friend­ly dog and I treat­ed him al­ready for ticks and worms these past three weeks. I need some­body to take him be­cause I don't have the space and I don't have a lot of time to spend with him," he said.

A vis­i­tor who parked out­side the gates said he came to gave the dogs a treat. "We come here once a month. We came to drop off some snacks," he said. An­oth­er vis­i­tor said, "I come to see if my dog in there. He was miss­ing since yes­ter­day. All I want to know is if they have him in there be­cause three dogs just came in there."

He point­ed to dog­catch­ers from the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion as they parked their van. In­sp Daniel Moore and Sgt Sean Clarke of the St James Po­lice Sta­tion ar­rived with vice chair­man of the TSP­CA North­ern Branch Ronald Ay­oung.

The T&TSP­CA mem­bers in the build­ing told po­lice they were not aware of the judg­ment and they had a lease from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. "We came here be­cause they claimed peo­ple were in­vad­ing the premis­es, which was not so," said Moore.

Ay­oung said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion was anx­ious to re­sume work. He said: "This branch was es­tab­lished by an Act of Par­lia­ment and we had an eight-year-old bat­tle with these peo­ple who are in con­trol of the premis­es. We are try­ing to re­gain pos­ses­sion but we were re­fused en­try. "We are anx­ious to gain pos­ses­sion so we could take care of the an­i­mals prop­er­ly."