Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Four months af­ter a High Court Judge di­rect­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pay with­held re­tire­ment ben­e­fits to a woman po­lice Sergeant, who re­tired af­ter sus­tain­ing an on-the-job in­jury, she is yet to re­ceive her mon­ey.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the TTPS is yet to com­ply with the or­der made by High Court Judge West­min James when he up­held He­len Mor­ri­son’s case in April.

Mor­ri­son is now said to be con­sid­er­ing her le­gal op­tions, in­clud­ing pos­si­bly bring­ing con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings against Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

He­lene Mor­ri­son served as a po­lice of­fi­cer for over two decades be­fore she re­tired in Feb­ru­ary 2020 af­ter sus­tain­ing a spinal in­jury from falling down a flight of stairs in 2018 at the Cu­mu­to High­way Pa­trol Base.

She was on in­jury leave for two years be­fore her re­tire­ment.

Mor­ri­son ar­gued that in the ab­sence of her re­tire­ment ben­e­fits, she was un­able to set­tle mount­ing med­ical debts for treat­ment re­lat­ed to her in­jury.

She was ini­tial­ly treat­ed at West­shore Med­ical Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal in Co­corite.

The for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer said she strug­gled to meet ba­sic liv­ing ex­pens­es, be­com­ing fi­nan­cial­ly de­pen­dent on fam­i­ly mem­bers to pay her mount­ing mort­gage debt.

Mor­ri­son was al­so di­ag­nosed with ma­jor de­pres­sive dis­or­der.

In an at­tempt to re­solve the pay­ment is­sue, she re­peat­ed­ly called and vis­it­ed the ser­vice, on­ly to be told that her file was still be­ing processed or with au­di­tors.

Through her lawyers, Prakash Ra­mad­har and Rae­sa Mo­hammed, Mor­ri­son filed the case for breach of con­tract, a breach of Reg­u­la­tion 183 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, and an un­con­sti­tu­tion­al de­pri­va­tion of her prop­er­ty.

Re­spond­ing to the case, the TTPS and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ar­gued that the de­lay was caused by a mul­ti-lay­ered and com­plex ad­min­is­tra­tive process that is re­quired un­der Po­lice Ser­vice reg­u­la­tions.

They claimed that the claimant’s file was sub­ject to queries, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing her State­ment of In­debt­ed­ness re­lat­ed to a to­tal of $588,644.86 in over­pay­ments she re­ceived dur­ing the course of her ca­reer.

In up­hold­ing the case, Jus­tice James crit­i­cised the de­lay.

He al­so found that the TTPS could on­ly seek to re­coup over­pay­ments made from De­cem­ber 2017 and af­ter based on the four-year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od.

Jus­tice James gave the TTPS three months in which to com­plete its cal­cu­la­tions and make the pay­ment to Mor­ri­son.