Derek Achong

A man, who was de­nied ac­cess to his lawyer when he was ar­rest­ed in 2019, has been award­ed a lit­tle over $115,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for David Ju­nior Fer­nan­do Sanchez as he up­held his con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice, last Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Sanchez was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 16, 2019, dur­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise tar­get­ing il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in Waller­field.

While be­ing de­tained at the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion, Sanchez was not in­formed of his right to an at­tor­ney and was de­nied an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tact one via tele­phone.

He was al­lowed to in­ter­act with an at­tor­ney at the po­lice sta­tion, but de­clined as he (the at­tor­ney) was not re­tained by his rel­a­tives.

At­tor­neys Matthew Gayle and Ja­son Jones of New City Cham­bers were even­tu­al­ly re­tained by his fam­i­ly to rep­re­sent Sanchez.

The duo at­tempt­ed to meet him at the sta­tion but were de­nied ac­cess due to a “tech­ni­cal se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.”

They even­tu­al­ly rep­re­sent­ed him when he made his first court ap­pear­ance three days be­fore his ini­tial ar­rest.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that Sanchez’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to lib­er­ty, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with le­gal coun­sel of one’s choice and pro­tec­tion of the law were breached when he was de­nied the tele­phone call and his lawyers were turned away.

“The pro­tec­tion of one’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights is of the ut­most im­por­tance, which is not to be tram­pled with,” he said.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed point­ed out that the po­lice nev­er gave a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion for deny­ing his at­tor­neys ac­cess when they vis­it­ed the sta­tion.

“The de­fen­dant did not clar­i­fy the na­ture of the se­cu­ri­ty is­sue that arose, such as whether it in­volved a bomb threat, fire or se­ri­ous al­ter­ca­tion in the cells. The vague se­cu­ri­ty is­sue in this case does not over­ride the Con­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed al­so ruled that a pe­ri­od of Sanchez’s de­ten­tion was un­law­ful as the po­lice of­fi­cers should have com­plet­ed their probe and charged him with­in 24 hours of his ar­rest.

He said that the State should be held li­able for Sanchez’s un­law­ful de­ten­tion for 28 hours.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered $65,000 in dam­ages for Sanchez.

“This court is sat­is­fied that a mere de­c­la­ra­tion is an in­ad­e­quate re­sponse to the State’s mis­use of pow­er,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

He al­so or­dered $50,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages to de­ter fu­ture con­duct.

The State was al­so or­dered to pay Sanchez $26,250 in le­gal costs for the law­suit.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Tri­cia Ram­lo­gan, Ja­nine Joseph, and Adana Hosang.