sto­ries by DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A po­lice con­sta­ble, who claims to have suf­fered post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) af­ter he was at­tacked and knocked un­con­scious by a col­league in 2019, has filed an as­sault and bat­tery case against the State. 

When PC Col­in Au­dain’s case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad on Mon­day, he set ex­pe­dit­ed dead­lines for fil­ing ev­i­dence and ad­journed it to De­cem­ber 9, when he is ex­pect­ed to set a tri­al date.  Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ex­pressed con­cern over the al­le­ga­tions made by Au­dain in his law­suit with­out mak­ing any de­ter­mi­na­tion.

He said, “The plead­ings in this case have left the court with an un­easy feel­ing. Giv­en the cur­rent cli­mate of un­con­trolled crime, cit­i­zens should ex­pect that there is an or­gan­ised and fo­cused ap­proach to those with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to con­front all man­ner of un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty which may oc­cur out­side po­lice sta­tions, but one does not ex­pect that a court should have to ad­dress as­ser­tions of un­law­ful con­duct with­in a po­lice sta­tion,” he added. Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the case stems from an in­ci­dent af­ter Au­dain be­gan his shift around 7 pm on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2019.  He ar­rived at the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion and was as­signed with a fe­male col­league to per­form pa­trols be­tween 8 pm and 12 am and 2 am and 6 am, the fol­low­ing day. 

Around 12.15 am, Au­dain and his col­league were pur­chas­ing a meal when he re­port­ed­ly re­ceived a call on his cell­phone from a cor­po­ral, whose name was with­held based on the stage of the case.  He claimed that he and his col­league then drove to Mau­si­ca Road, D’Abadie, where they parked and had their meal. Au­dain claimed that around 2 am, he con­tact­ed the Po­lice Com­mand Cen­tre via the wire­less and in­di­cat­ed that they were about to com­mence their next round of pa­trols.

He claimed that his col­league was con­tact­ed by the cor­po­ral, who in­struct­ed them to im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn to the po­lice sta­tion.  They com­plied, and when they ar­rived, the cor­po­ral sought to in­ter­ro­gate Au­dain about their pa­trols. Au­dain claimed that he was at­tempt­ing to make an en­try re­lat­ed to the pa­trol in the sta­tion di­ary when the cor­po­ral grabbed him. He claimed that the cor­po­ral’s speech was slurred and that he had a strong scent of al­co­hol in his breath. Au­dain claimed that he at­tempt­ed to push the of­fi­cer off him, and he (the of­fi­cer) re­spond­ed by re­peat­ed­ly punch­ing him in the face. 

Au­dain went un­con­scious and awoke hours lat­er at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty.  Two of Au­dain’s bot­tom front teeth and an up­per left tooth were chipped. His nose and mouth were swollen and bleed­ing, and his head was hurt­ing “un­bear­ably”. 

He was trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, where he was dis­charged the fol­low­ing day.  He claimed that he sub­se­quent­ly saw pho­tographs of him ly­ing in the po­lice sta­tion, un­con­scious, be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.  He then made a re­port of the in­ci­dent to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), which in­ves­ti­gates po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of com­mit­ting crimes.  He claimed that he had to seek treat­ment from a psy­chi­a­trist for PTSD as he has con­stant flash­backs of the at­tack, dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing, de­pres­sion, and loss of li­bido. 

Through the law­suit, Au­dain is seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the pain and hu­mil­i­a­tion he en­dured.  He is al­so seek­ing al­most $18,000 in spe­cial dam­ages, which rep­re­sents the fees he paid the psy­chi­a­trist be­tween Oc­to­ber 2019 and March 2022. 

In de­fence of the case, state at­tor­neys have claimed that the cor­po­ral made an en­try in the sta­tion di­ary af­ter he made mul­ti­ple at­tempts to con­tact Au­dain and his col­league while they were on pa­trol and re­ceived no re­sponse.  It was claimed that Au­dain at­tacked the cor­po­ral.

Au­di­an is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Umesh Ma­haraj and Ner­isa Bala.  The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is rep­re­sent­ed by Can­dice Alexan­der, Rachel Wright, and Tenelle Hills.