For the second time in less than two years, the State will have to pay a Claxton Bay man compensation for malicious prosecution at the hands of the police.
Mark Hagley, who was beaten by police and falsely charged for drug trafficking in 2013, is set to receive $270,000 in compensation.
Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell ordered the compensation for Hagley after she upheld his malicious prosecution, false imprisonment and assault and battery claims in the San Fernando High Court, on Thursday afternoon.
In 2017, Hagley received $425,000 for malicious prosecution after being falsely charged with 11 criminal offences including kidnapping, rape and robbery in 2006.
This means that in total Hagley would receive $695,000 from the State in the last two years.
In the most recent case before Donaldson-Honeywell, Hagley claimed that he was liming at a friend’s home at Cedar Hill Road in Claxton Bay on March 30, 2013, when police raided the property.
The officers allegedly made Hagley lie on the floor and then began to stomp on his neck.
They then arrested him and his friends and charged them for possession of a large quantity of marijuana, which they claimed was found in the house.
Hagley spent a little over three months in prison before he was eventually able to secure bail.
He made over a dozen appearances in court before the charge was eventually dismissed by a Magistrate, after PC Donald Snaggs, who charged Hagley, failed to attend hearings and tender evidence in the case.
In August, last year, Snaggs was charged alongside PC Peter Farnum for murdering Adalle Gilbert on October 20, 2016.
Gilbert was near his home at Carlton Lane, San Fernando, when he reportedly got into an argument with a group of plain-clothes police officers and was shot and killed.
In assessing the evidence in the case, Donaldson-Honeywell ruled that Snaggs was not a credible witness.
She rejected his claims that he conducted surveillance on the house before conducting the raid.
The judge also took issue with the fact that station diaries detailing Hagley’s arrest were unsigned and not certified as well as the State’s failure to disclose other records of the raid.
Hagley was represented by Abdel and Shabaana Mohammed, while Ryan Grant and Daniella Boxhill represented the State.