Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A Unit­ed King­dom-based dig­i­tal jour­nal­ist has been or­dered to pay over $250,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to an em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, who he named as be­ing part of an al­leged plot to desta­bilise the coun­try. 

High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion on Tues­day as he up­held Ton­ja-Melanie Man­nette’s defama­tion case against Pearce Robin­son. 

Man­nette’s case against Robin­son was based on a 49-minute live video post­ed by Robin­son on his Face­book page on March 14, 2024.  

In the post, ti­tled: “THE FULL THREAT AGAINST TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO #SSA @FOL­LOW­ERS,” Robin­son de­tailed an al­leged “Chris­t­ian Coup” in­volv­ing staff of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), who were al­so mem­bers of the Jerusalem Bride Church. 

Man­nette’s name was on­ly men­tioned once as Robin­son in­clud­ed her in a list of per­sons who were em­ployed by the SSA and con­nect­ed to the church. 

In de­fence of the law­suit, Robin­son sought to re­ly on the fact that Man­nette was an ex­ec­u­tive aide at the SSA and a mem­ber of the church. 

He claimed that his post was based on read­ing re­ports on a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) shake-up and au­dit of the SSA as well as in­for­ma­tion he al­leged­ly re­ceived from con­fi­den­tial sources, which he de­clined to name. 

Robin­son al­so ad­mit­ted that he was not aware of the le­gal con­cept of “Reynolds priv­i­lege,” which is used by jour­nal­ists as a de­fence to defama­tion claims. 

In de­ter­min­ing whether Man­nette had been de­famed, Jus­tice James con­sid­ered the struc­ture of the broad­cast in­stead of iso­lat­ing the sin­gle oc­ca­sion Man­nette’s name was men­tioned. 

“The Court does not ac­cept the De­fen­dant’s sub­mis­sion that the Claimant was placed in a neu­tral list of per­sons hav­ing two co­in­ci­den­tal af­fil­i­a­tions,” Jus­tice James said. 

Jus­tice James found that the al­le­ga­tions were plain­ly in­tend­ed to low­er her in the es­ti­ma­tion of right-think­ing mem­bers of so­ci­ety and to in­jure her pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion. 

“An al­le­ga­tion that an of­fi­cer with­in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus is know­ing­ly con­nect­ed to a clan­des­tine group which has in­fil­trat­ed State in­sti­tu­tions and is as­so­ci­at­ed with sur­veil­lance, as­sas­si­na­tion and a silent coup strikes di­rect­ly at her in­tegri­ty, loy­al­ty, trust­wor­thi­ness and fit­ness to hold sen­si­tive pub­lic em­ploy­ment,” he said. 

He re­ject­ed Robin­son’s de­fence of qual­i­fied priv­i­lege as he ruled that Robin­son did not prac­tice re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism be­fore pub­li­ca­tion in­clud­ing fail­ing to give Man­nette an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to al­le­ga­tions. 

In de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for Man­nette, Jus­tice James con­sid­ered the grav­i­ty of the al­le­ga­tions and the ef­fect on her. 

How­ev­er, he found that she failed to prove that she was di­ag­nosed with a psy­chi­atric con­di­tion and trans­ferred from the SSA to the min­istry based on it. 

He al­so con­sid­ered that Robin­son re­moved the post af­ter be­ing threat­ened with the law­suit.

Jus­tice James award­ed $200,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages to cov­er Man­nette’s hurt feel­ings and to vin­di­cate her rep­u­ta­tion.

He or­dered $50,000 in ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages based on Robin­son’s fail­ure to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion, the pro­longed avail­abil­i­ty of the pub­li­ca­tion and the ab­sence of an apol­o­gy. 

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice James is­sued an in­junc­tion block­ing Robin­son from re­pub­lish­ing the defam­a­to­ry al­le­ga­tions. 

He de­clined to di­rect Robin­son to is­sue a pub­lic apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion. 

“The Court’s de­c­la­ra­tion, dam­ages award and in­junc­tion pro­vide vin­di­ca­tion with­out com­pelling the De­fen­dant to pro­fess con­tri­tion,” he said. 

Robin­son was al­so or­dered to pay $47,131.85 in le­gal costs. 

In 2024, then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced a ma­jor au­dit in­to the SSA’s op­er­a­tions based on in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the NSC by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). 

SSA head Ma­jor Roger Best was re­moved and sev­er­al SSA of­fi­cials were re­as­signed. 

Sev­er­al of­fi­cials were al­so charged with crim­i­nal of­fences re­lat­ed to the al­leged pos­ses­sion and trans­fer of pro­hib­it­ed weapons, but the charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed over de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing them.

Man­nette still has a sep­a­rate pend­ing law­suit over be­ing trans­ferred to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing Acad­e­my. 

Man­nette was rep­re­sent­ed by Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai, Mpule Williams and Chelsea Ed­wards, of Hove and As­so­ciates.

Robin­son was rep­re­sent­ed by Nera Nar­ine-Mol­lick.