DEREK ACHONG

The State has agreed to pay al­most $80,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a me­chan­ic from Tu­na­puna, who was wrong­ful­ly ar­rest­ed and de­tained for 12 hours be­fore be­ing re­leased.

In Oc­to­ber, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty in Kevon Bas­combe's wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment case when it came up for tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad.

This week, the AG's Of­fice agreed to pay Bas­combe $78,800 to set­tle the law­suit, and a con­sent or­der was en­tered be­fore High Court Mas­ter Sher­lanne Pierre.

Ac­cord­ing to Bas­combe's court fil­ings, the law­suit stemmed from an in­ci­dent at his home, which he shared with his two broth­ers, on June 11, 2020.

The three sib­lings were awak­ened by bang­ing on their front door.

When they opened the door, they were greet­ed by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers, who hand­ed over a search war­rant for il­le­gal arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly did not find any­thing il­le­gal dur­ing the search but still ar­rest­ed Bas­combe.

He was tak­en to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion and placed in a hold­ing cell.

While in cus­tody, he was ques­tioned about a man who briefly lived in his com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, Bas­combe claimed he had no con­nec­tion to the man.

Bas­combe was in­struct­ed to re­move his shirt, and a po­lice of­fi­cer took bare-chest­ed pho­tographs of him.

The of­fi­cers al­so asked him to sign a state­ment be­fore he was even­tu­al­ly re­leased with­out be­ing charged.

Bas­combe claimed that af­ter be­ing re­leased, he no­ticed that strangers at the side of the road were point­ing at him and laugh­ing.

He lat­er learnt that the pho­tographs tak­en by the po­lice of­fi­cer were shared on so­cial me­dia pages with cap­tions al­leg­ing that he was a mem­ber of a gang.

Bas­combe claimed that he lost clients af­ter the in­ci­dent, and his chil­dren were bul­lied in school be­cause of it.

In the law­suit, Bas­combe's lawyer Ab­del Mo­hammed claimed that the po­lice did not have any rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest and de­tain him.

The com­pen­sa­tion agreed to by the State in­clud­ed Bas­combe's le­gal costs for bring­ing the law­suit.

At­tor­ney Lianne Thomas rep­re­sent­ed the AG's Of­fice.