Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The State has been ordered to pay more than $500,000 in compensation to two men, including one convicted of a brutal triple murder, who were assaulted while in prison.
Delivering separate judgments on Thursday, High Court judges Devindra Rampersad and Ricky Rahim ordered compensation for Garnet Stapleton and murder convict Daniel Agard as they upheld their lawsuits.
Stapleton was beaten by a group of prison officers while he was serving a short sentence for a minor crime at the Port-of-Spain State Prison in December 2019. Agard was slashed on the face by a fellow death row inmate while under the supervision of a group of prison officers at the same prison, almost exactly a year before the incident with Stapleton.
Stapleton, who was represented by Joseph Sookoo and Abigail Roach of Potentia Chambers, claimed that he was in the prison’s airing yard when a prison officer began taunting him by calling him “a girl.” He admitted that he returned the insult, and the officer responded by slapping him six times.
He claimed that two of the officer’s colleagues joined in and allegedly beat him with their batons for several minutes. He received stitches for a head wound, and his left hand, which was found to be broken, was placed in a cast. The officers denied any wrongdoing.
The officer, who Stapleton claimed initiated the attack, claimed that Stapleton attacked him after he tried to stop him from harassing inmates for additional food after he already had his. His colleagues claimed that they intervened and beat Stapleton with their batons as they saw him reach for what they believed was an improvised weapon in his waistband while wrestling with him. They also suggested that Stapleton sustained the head injury when he slipped and fell in the fracas.
In deciding Stapleton’s case, Justice Rampersad noted that he had difficulty finding what caused the altercation as Stapleton did not call any witnesses. However, he noted that even if it was initiated by Stapleton, the officers’ heavy-handed response was not justified.
“The court is of the respectful view that the use of force was unreasonable and unwarranted in the circumstances and was disproportionate to what was required at the time,” he said.
Justice Rampersad questioned the officers’ claims over the alleged weapon, pointing out that they failed to testify about whether it was found after Stapleton was incapacitated. “For prison officers charged with the safety and security of the prison and its occupants, it seems reckless to have left the claimant without searching him if there was a suspected weapon,” he said.
Justice Rampersad ordered $180,000 in general damages for the pain and suffering Stapleton endured and continues to endure, as he still experiences excruciating pain in his arm and is left with a limited range of movement.
The State was also ordered to pay $25,000 in exemplary damages for the officers’ conduct, $70,000 in legal costs, and $160,000 in additional compensation, which represents the costs associated with future surgeries and therapy that Stapleton has to undergo in order to regain full movement in his arm.
‘Officers breached
their duty of care’
In Agard’s case, on December 17, 2018, he was playing dominoes in the airing yard with fellow prisoners and a prison officer when he was approached by another inmate, who gave him a cigarette before walking away. Agard was smoking the cigarette when the man returned and, without warning, slashed him on the face with an improvised weapon made by attaching a blade to a toothbrush.
While prison officers did not commit the assault on Agard, Justice Rahim found that they were negligent in allowing it to occur. Justice Rahim identified several lapses by the officers involved. He stated that he was astounded that one officer was playing dominoes with Agard and the other prisoners while assigned to supervise them.
“The point is very well made that one involved with the game would be paying more attention to the game than to his surroundings. This much is very clear,” he said. He also took issue with the fact that the officers admitted that Agard was initially handed a cigarette and was smoking at the time of the attack.
“This was rather perplexing to the court and demonstrated that the officers were failing in their duty to prevent illegality in the prison. So that there were games and smoking taking place and at least one officer had joined in the fun,” he said.
Based on his findings, Justice Rahim found that the officers breached their duty of care by failing to search the yard to prevent the other inmate from retrieving the weapon after being initially searched upon leaving his cell. He also ruled that they failed to properly supervise the prisoners to avoid the attack.
Justice Rahim ordered $45,000 in damages for Agard and ordered the State to pay his legal costs for the case. Agard and Lester Pittman were accused of murdering agricultural consultant John Cropper, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee, 68, and his sister-in-law Lynette Lithgow-Pearson, 57.
The three relatives were killed at Cropper’s Cascade home in December 2001. Their bodies were found by Cropper’s housekeeper the following day. They were all bound and gagged with electrical wire, and their throats had been slit. In 2004, Agard and Pittman were convicted of the triple murder. The Court of Appeal eventually quashed Agard’s conviction, ordered a retrial, and upheld Pittman’s conviction.
Pittman successfully challenged his conviction before the Privy Council, with the British Law Lords remitting the case to the Appeal Court for them to consider whether his conviction was safe considering new evidence over his mental state. The Appeal Court eventually upheld Pittman’s conviction but sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 40 years before he could be released.
Agard was again convicted in his retrial. While he was initially given the mandatory death penalty, the sentence was commuted after the five-year period for lawfully carrying it out expired. Agard was represented by Lemuel Murphy and Alexia Romero.
