Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay al­most $180,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a man from Princes Town, who claimed that he was ex­tort­ed by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers. 

In late April, the man, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to per­son­al safe­ty con­cerns raised by his at­tor­neys, ob­tained a de­fault judg­ment from High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams af­ter the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al failed to de­fend his law­suit against the State. 

The com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to him was as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Wren­er­son Lochan late last month. 

The law­suit stemmed from an in­ci­dent in Princes Town on March 2, 2024. 

The man, a labour­er, was con­sum­ing a meal at a shop­ping mall when he was con­front­ed by a group of of­fi­cers in­clud­ing one he knew pre­vi­ous­ly. 

He claimed that the of­fi­cers searched him and found 28 grammes of mar­i­jua­na (just short of the le­gal per­son­al lim­it) and $18,400 in cash. 

He was hand­cuffed and placed in a po­lice ve­hi­cle.

He claimed that the of­fi­cers de­mand­ed that he sup­ply them with mar­i­jua­na for him to be re­leased. 

He claimed that they took his cell­phone and at­tempt­ed to call con­tacts but could not do so as he had in­suf­fi­cient cred­it. 

One of the of­fi­cers pur­chased a pre­paid phone card and then drove with the man to M1 Tasker Road. 

While there, they con­tact­ed the man’s broth­er and re­quest­ed that he sup­ply the mar­i­jua­na and $10,000 to se­cure his re­lease. 

His broth­er re­port­ed­ly claimed that he could pay the mon­ey but not sup­ply the mar­i­jua­na. 

Al­though his broth­er de­liv­ered the cash at the lo­ca­tion iden­ti­fied by the of­fi­cers, the man was on­ly re­leased af­ter the of­fi­cers took his gold chain, val­ued at $189,000, and gold band, val­ued at $88,600. 

The man went for med­ical treat­ment as he suf­fered in­juries to his wrists due to the hand­cuffs be­ing too tight. 

He then made a re­port to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB). 

In the law­suit, the man’s lawyers Dou­glas Bay­ley and Frank Git­tens claimed that the of­fi­cers breached sev­er­al of their client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and caused him emo­tion­al dis­tress and phys­i­cal in­juries.  

They claimed that he had been wrong­ful­ly ar­rest­ed, as­sault­ed and false­ly im­pris­oned.

They al­so al­leged un­just en­rich­ment and con­ver­sion in re­la­tion to the cash tak­en from him and his broth­er and the jew­ellery. 

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the man, Mas­ter Lochan did not award the full val­ue of the jew­ellery that he claimed was un­law­ful­ly tak­en by the of­fi­cers as he could not strict­ly prove such. 

In­stead, he or­dered $40,000 for as­sault and bat­tery and false im­pris­on­ment; $18,400 in spe­cial dam­ages; $50,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages; and $50,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages. 

He or­dered in­ter­est on the dam­ages and $19,784.59 in le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the lit­i­ga­tion. 

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Che Richards.