Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A small busi­ness own­er from Rio Claro, who was gang raped by fel­low pris­on­ers while on re­mand for a crime he was framed for, has been award­ed a lit­tle over $500,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last month, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed up­held the ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, false im­pris­on­ment and as­sault and bat­tery case brought by the man, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held by this news­pa­per based on the sex­u­al as­sault claims up­held in his law­suit.

The law­suit stemmed from his ar­rest by po­lice of­fi­cers on June 14, 2017.

The man had just fin­ished speak­ing to a cus­tomer about his agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce at his road­side stall when two po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rived in a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle.

He claimed that the of­fi­cers ques­tioned him over his pres­ence in the area be­fore ar­rest­ing him.

He al­leged that the of­fi­cers drove to a shop in the area, and the own­er was asked to con­firm whether he had robbed her ear­li­er that day.

He claimed that al­though the woman claimed that the rob­bery was com­mit­ted by two men from out­side the com­mu­ni­ty, he re­mained un­der ar­rest and was tak­en to a de­sert­ed area where he was beat­en by the two of­fi­cers.

He was then tak­en to the Rio Claro Po­lice Sta­tion and placed in an un­san­i­tary cell.

He was even­tu­al­ly tak­en for med­ical treat­ment at a health cen­tre be­fore be­ing charged with armed rob­bery.

He spent al­most two months on re­mand at the Gold­en Grove State Prison in Arou­ca be­fore he was able to ac­cess bail.

He claimed that while on re­mand, he was re­peat­ed­ly at­tacked by fel­low pris­on­ers who raped him. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that he did not re­port the at­tack to prison of­fi­cers be­cause he was in fear for his life.

He made nu­mer­ous court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charge was dis­missed based on a no-case sub­mis­sion made by his at­tor­ney.

In the law­suit, the man claimed that he is still trau­ma­tised over what tran­spired with the po­lice of­fi­cers and in prison.

“He con­tend­ed that his in­juries are phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal and have led to the break­down of his mar­riage as well as his strug­gle with sui­cide,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

In de­fence of the case, the po­lice of­fi­cers de­nied any wrong­do­ing as they claimed that they ar­rest­ed the man near the shop as they re­spond­ed to the rob­bery.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so called on the court to re­ject his claims over the sex­u­al as­saults, as he did not pro­vide proof of such.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed re­ject­ed his claims of be­ing beat­en by the po­lice of­fi­cers af­ter he was ar­rest­ed, as she not­ed that his med­ical re­ports from the health cen­tre did not sup­port his as­ser­tion.

How­ev­er, she found that the po­lice of­fi­cers did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest and charge him for the rob­bery and in­ferred mal­ice from their ac­tions.

“It was clear to me that PC Charles and PC Abra­ham de­lib­er­ate­ly fab­ri­cat­ed a sto­ry to place the Claimant at Chap­per­man Shop at the time of the rob­bery when there was not a shred of ev­i­dence to sup­port that he was present at the ma­te­r­i­al time,” she said.

She al­so up­held his claims over the sex­u­al as­saults in prison de­spite the lack of prison and med­ical re­ports.

Stat­ing that his ev­i­dence was un­shak­en in his tes­ti­mo­ny, Jus­tice Mo­hammed said: “It was not plau­si­ble that the Claimant would make an al­le­ga­tion of sex­u­al as­sault while he was at the prison and sub­ject him­self to rig­or­ous cross-ex­am­i­na­tion if there was no truth to his as­ser­tion.”

She al­so stat­ed that his claim that he did not seek treat­ment for his in­juries af­ter leav­ing prison be­cause he was em­bar­rassed and took herbal reme­dies from his now-de­ceased grand­moth­er was ac­cept­able.

In de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the man, Jus­tice Mo­hammed not­ed that there was a scarci­ty of case law on the awards for sex­u­al as­sault to men while in cus­tody.

She award­ed him $200,000 based on the se­vere as­sault de­scribed in graph­ic de­tail by him.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered $80,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, $125,000 for the pe­ri­od of his false im­pris­on­ment, and $12,400 to cov­er his le­gal fees for the crim­i­nal case.

She al­so or­dered $20,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to high­light her crit­i­cism of the of­fi­cers’ con­duct.

“In my view, such ac­tion by the of­fi­cers as agents of the State was op­pres­sive,” she said.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion and that he be paid $65,240 in le­gal costs for the civ­il law­suit.

The man was rep­re­sent­ed by Lu­a­na Leza­ma and Rea­gan Rowans. Rachel Ja­cob and Claire Thomas-Med­i­na rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.