Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay al­most $160,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a man who was beat­en by po­lice and Coast Guard of­fi­cers dur­ing a traf­fic stop more than a decade ago.

High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Re­nal­do Brown af­ter up­hold­ing his claims of wrong­ful ar­rest, as­sault and bat­tery, and false im­pris­on­ment.

The case stemmed from an in­ci­dent on Ju­ly 19, 2014.

Brown had parked his car along the West­ern Main Road and was try­ing to merge in­to the left lane when he was stopped by a group of po­lice and Coast Guard of­fi­cers.

One of the po­lice of­fi­cers, PC Ben­jamin, opened Brown’s car door. Brown and his pas­sen­ger got out.

Brown claimed that Ben­jamin found noth­ing il­le­gal in the car but told him he was ar­rest­ing him for pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion and mar­i­jua­na.

Brown said he protest­ed be­cause he had done noth­ing wrong, and that Ben­jamin head-butted him.

He claimed that oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers and a Coast Guard of­fi­cer joined in, and that the at­tack stopped on­ly af­ter an­oth­er of­fi­cer, whom he knew as PC Stroude, de­fused the sit­u­a­tion.

Brown was tak­en to the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion, where he claimed he was beat­en again be­fore be­ing placed in a cell.

He re­mained in de­ten­tion for more than a day be­fore he was shown what was de­scribed as mar­i­jua­na and am­mu­ni­tion and charged.

He spent sev­er­al weeks on re­mand be­fore be­ing grant­ed bail. The charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed.

Through his lawyers, Yaseen Ahmed and Tara Lutch­man, Brown filed two cas­es: the one be­fore Jus­tice Mo­hammed and a sep­a­rate claim for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

An­oth­er judge dis­missed the ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case as an abuse of process, find­ing that Brown should have pur­sued one all-en­com­pass­ing case.

Brown’s at­tor­neys have ap­pealed, ar­gu­ing that the judge was wrong to find that ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion is not a sep­a­rate cause of ac­tion.

In de­fence of the law­suit, Ben­jamin and an­oth­er of­fi­cer tes­ti­fied and de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

Ben­jamin said he de­cid­ed to stop Brown be­cause he was parked in an area ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a gang war and in front of a tyre shop that had been robbed a week ear­li­er.

Ben­jamin de­nied re­peat­ed­ly as­sault­ing Brown and said Brown re­sist­ed af­ter he found the il­le­gal items in Brown’s pock­et.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed found that Ben­jamin did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to stop and search the ve­hi­cle.

“Sim­ply be­ing in a car in a lo­ca­tion where there is an on­go­ing gang war and a pri­or rob­bery of the tyre shop is not suf­fi­cient to say it aroused his sus­pi­cions on rea­son­able grounds,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

He not­ed that, based on the ev­i­dence be­fore him, Ben­jamin ar­rest­ed Brown be­fore the il­le­gal items were pur­port­ed­ly found.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed up­held Brown’s as­sault and bat­tery claim but not­ed that the in­juries doc­u­ment­ed in the med­ical re­port were in­con­sis­tent with his claims of a pro­longed and bru­tal at­tack by Ben­jamin and his col­leagues.

“The med­ical re­port men­tioned is more con­sis­tent with the scuf­fle that took place be­tween Brown, Ben­jamin and the Coast Guard of­fi­cer,” he said.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed award­ed $45,000 in dam­ages for as­sault and bat­tery and $10,000 in ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages.

“Con­sid­er­ing the hu­mil­i­a­tion, dis­grace and in­dig­ni­ty the Claimant would have suf­fered as a re­sult of the fight in front of his friend and cu­ri­ous on­look­ers, this court is of the view that an award of ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages would be ap­pro­pri­ate,” he said.

He al­so award­ed $30,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages for the of­fi­cers’ egre­gious con­duct and $35,000 for the pe­ri­ods Brown was de­tained.

The State was or­dered to pay in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion, as well as Brown’s le­gal costs.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Teeluck­d­har­ry and Kezia Red­head.