Fran­cis Joseph

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice James Philbert has come in for crit­i­cism from a High Court judge who award­ed dam­ages to a for­mer Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice­man (SRP) for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion and un­law­ful de­ten­tion.

As far as Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh was con­cerned, "it was plain to me that there was an in­ten­tion to pun­ish the claimant be­cause there was a be­lief, even if un­rea­son­ably, that he had used ob­scene lan­guage to some­one who was ei­ther the wife of a po­lice of­fi­cer or some­one known to "big po­lice", per­haps even the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice him­self." Boodoos­ingh added: "It is note­wor­thy in this re­gard that the in­struc­tions came from the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, a fact that on­ly came out in cross-ex­am­i­na­tion."

He said a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice was en­ti­tled to treat se­ri­ous­ly any re­port made to him about the con­duct of his po­lice of­fi­cers. He said: "Noth­ing I say here should be per­ceived as im­ply­ing that re­ports of mis­con­duct should not be prop­er­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed. "Noth­ing must be per­ceived as im­ply­ing that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice should not per­son­al­ly get in­volved in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when it re­lates to the al­leged con­duct of one of his of­fi­cers.

"At the same time, a po­lice of­fi­cer ac­cused of crime is al­so en­ti­tled, as any oth­er cit­i­zen, to a fair in­ves­ti­ga­tion and all the pro­ce­dur­al pro­tec­tions that the law af­fords." Stephen Lewis, 38, of Quar­ry Vil­lage, Siparia, was award­ed $75,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, and an­oth­er $50,000 for un­law­ful de­ten­tion. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has been or­dered to pay a fur­ther $27,975 in costs. The court heard that on April 13 and 14, 2006, Lewis vis­it­ed the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where his broth­er was a pa­tient. He said he had to speak to a nurse, Lau­rel Knutt, about the man­ner in which she spoke to him.

She replied she did not care about that, that her hus­band was a po­lice of­fi­cer and she knew a "lot of big po­lice." The fol­low­ing day, Lewis said he had to speak to Knutt again about how she spoke to peo­ple. Knutt made a re­port and one Cor­po­ral Ger­ald Mc In­tosh was di­rect­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter. The nurse had re­port­ed that Lewis used ob­scene lan­guage. Dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of Mc In­tosh, Boodoos­ingh said cer­tain mat­ters came out. It was there it was dis­cov­ered that the re­port by Knutt was made to Philbert. Mc In­tosh said: "I was in­struct­ed to con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re: al­leged ob­scene lan­guage. Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Philbert in­struct­ed me to car­ry out the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"I re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from Philbert that an of­fence had al­leged­ly tak­en place at Ward Three of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. "I was told I was re­quired to go and in­ter­view nurse Knutt and oth­er nurs­es. I went to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal as a re­sult of then act­ing com­mis­sion­er." The court al­so heard that around 1.30 am on April 27, 2006, Mc In­tosh and oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers went to Lewis' home. Mc In­tosh said he was 'in­vit­ed' to en­ter the home and to look for Lewis. He found Lewis hid­ing. Lewis had a dif­fer­ent ver­sion. He said the of­fi­cers barged in­to his home with­out a war­rant and told him he was "lock up." Boodoos­ingh said Mc In­tosh's ver­sion was un­be­liev­able.