A re­tired se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer has lost his law­suit over be­ing ar­rest­ed by mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and charged af­ter be­ing in­volved in a mi­nor car ac­ci­dent in 2020.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day at the end of a tri­al, which com­menced on Mon­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad dis­missed Julien John­son’s law­suit against the may­or, al­der­man, coun­cil­lors and cit­i­zens of Ari­ma and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that John­son’s wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment, as­sault and bat­tery, and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case was com­plete­ly de­void of mer­it.

The law­suit stemmed from an in­ci­dent which oc­curred at an ac­cess road be­tween a bank and two pop­u­lar fast food restau­rants, off Hol­lis Av­enue in Ari­ma, on Jan­u­ary 20, 2020.

John­son, who was a Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent at the time, at­tempt­ed to ma­noeu­vre his pri­vate ve­hi­cle from be­tween two parked cars when he re­versed in­to one of them.

The own­er of the parked car that John­son col­lid­ed with made a re­port to mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

The of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed John­son af­ter he re­port­ed­ly re­fused to show them his dri­ver’s per­mit and cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance.

De­tec­tives of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), which is tasked with prob­ing of­fi­cers ac­cused of crimes, took over the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Af­ter con­sult­ing the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), John­son was charged with fail­ing to pro­vide his dri­ver’s per­mit and in­sur­ance, re­sist­ing ar­rest, and ma­li­cious dam­age to the ve­hi­cle.

He filed the civ­il law­suit seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion af­ter the charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by a mag­is­trate.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed John­son’s claims that the mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to re­quest his doc­u­ments and ar­rest him.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that un­der the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers have the same pow­ers as TTPS of­fi­cers.

“The claimant be­ing a Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent was seem­ing­ly in­censed by the fact he was be­ing ques­tioned by a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer,” he said.

Stat­ing that TTPS of­fi­cers of­ten op­er­at­ed based on the mis­guid­ed no­tion that they are su­pe­ri­or to mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRPs), Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “They do not have greater au­thor­i­ty.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad strong­ly con­demned John­son’s con­duct, which he de­scribed as an un­ac­cept­able and re­gret­table at­tempt to “as­sert rank”.

He al­so found that PSB Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Ri­car­do Mon­trichard, who charged John­son, had rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to do so.

“Even if he did not have such, there is no op­er­a­tive cir­cum­stance which could sug­gest that he act­ed with mal­ice or it can be in­ferred,” he said.

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered John­son to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by the cor­po­ra­tion and the AG’s Of­fice for de­fend­ing his claim.

John­son was rep­re­sent­ed by Pe­ter Carter. The cor­po­ra­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Raisa Cae­sar, while Tri­cia Ram­lo­gan and Brent James rep­re­sent­ed the AG’s Of­fice.