Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Three years af­ter po­lice searched the home and of­fice of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Zor­isha Hack­ett as part of its au­dio­gate probe, the High Court has ruled the po­lice act­ed il­le­gal­ly.

Hack­ett was among sev­er­al sec­re­taries whose homes were searched by po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an au­dio record­ing where THA of­fi­cials were al­leged­ly heard dis­cussing us­ing state re­sources for pro­pa­gan­da.

In the record­ing, a voice could be heard say­ing the As­sem­bly would pro­vide “lu­cra­tive” salaries to in­di­vid­u­als to “shape the nar­ra­tive.”

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis had said the record­ing showed “ev­i­dence” of cor­rup­tion with­in the THA.

Yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran found the search­es were un­law­ful, un­nec­es­sary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate, adding that the war­rant was in­valid, null and void.

The court or­dered that all items seized be re­turned to the then ed­u­ca­tion sec­re­tary, who was al­so award­ed costs.

In a post to so­cial me­dia, Hack­ett said she felt “vin­di­cat­ed and re­lieved” by the de­ci­sion. She claimed the in­ci­dent had cast a shad­ow over her life as the threat of in­car­cer­a­tion nev­er left. She de­nounced the ac­tions by po­lice as state over­reach and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

The Sec­re­tary of Tourism, An­tiq­ui­ties and Cre­ative In­dus­tries thanked God, her fam­i­ly and every­one who stood by her.

She was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Christlyn Moore, Joshua Ham­let and Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace.

Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor had al­so chal­lenged the search war­rant, which al­leged she was sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the State. In 2025, the court al­so de­ter­mined the search of her home was un­law­ful and based on de­fec­tive in­for­ma­tion. She was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Moore, Ham­let and Joseph-Wal­lace.

The home of Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine was al­so searched.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Snr Supt Rod­hil Kirk for an up­date on the au­dio­gate in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but he could not con­firm as the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion was not in­volved in the probe. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der could not be reached for com­ment up to press time. — Stephon Nicholas