For the fourth time in eight years, the State has been or­dered to pay sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion to a man from Clax­ton Bay due to the ac­tions of the po­lice. 

On Mon­day, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran up­held Mark Vic­tor Ha­gley’s false im­pris­on­ment law­suit and or­dered $170,970 in com­pen­sa­tion. 

Ha­gley’s lat­est le­gal vic­to­ry brought the to­tal com­pen­sa­tion he has re­ceived from the State for the egre­gious con­duct of po­lice of­fi­cers to well over $1 mil­lion. 

The case was re­lat­ed to Ha­gley’s ar­rest on June 5, 2016. 

Ha­gley was walk­ing along For­res Park Road in Clax­ton Bay when he was stopped by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers, who were dri­ving by. 

The of­fi­cers searched Ha­gley and found noth­ing il­le­gal, but still ar­rest­ed him as they claimed that he was a sus­pect in a rob­bery in Princes Town. 

Ha­gley spent four days in po­lice cus­tody be­fore be­ing re­leased with­out charge. Dur­ing that time, he was trans­ferred be­tween three po­lice sta­tions in south Trinidad. 

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled that the of­fi­cers did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest Ha­gley on sus­pi­cion of com­mit­ting the rob­bery. 

He ques­tioned why sta­tion di­ary ex­tracts, in­ter­view notes, and CCTV footage of the pur­port­ed rob­bery that the of­fi­cers claimed they re­lied on were not dis­closed in the case. 

“In as­sess­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the wit­ness­es, the court is tak­en aback by the lack of doc­u­men­tary and oth­er ev­i­dence in the De­fen­dant’s case, giv­en the num­ber of things which were said to have been record­ed,” Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran said. 

“In the cir­cum­stances, the court prefers the ev­i­dence of the Claimant where it dif­fers from the ev­i­dence of the de­fen­dant,” he added. 

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran or­dered $100,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages and $35,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages. The State was al­so or­dered to pay in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion, as well as Ha­gley’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Pri­or ar­rests

In 2017, Ha­gley won a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion over be­ing ar­rest­ed by an of­fi­cer from the St Mar­garet’s Po­lice Sta­tion and charged with kid­nap­ping, rape, se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy and sev­er­al counts of lar­ce­ny in 2006. 

The charges were dis­missed by a San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trate af­ter the of­fi­cers failed to ap­pear in court to pros­e­cute the case. 

High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed grant­ed a de­fault judg­ment af­ter the State failed to file a de­fence to the claim and or­dered over $425,000 in com­pen­sa­tion. 

In Ju­ly 2018, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an­oth­er de­fault judg­ment in a sim­i­lar case over Ha­gley’s ar­rest while he was on bail for the first set of charges in 2010. 

Ha­gley claimed that on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2010, he was lim­ing at a bar in Clax­ton Bay when the same group of of­fi­cers, who had framed him four years ear­li­er, ar­rived. 

Al­though the of­fi­cers searched Ha­gley and found noth­ing il­le­gal, he was still ar­rest­ed and charged with co­caine pos­ses­sion. 

Ha­gley spent 45 days on re­mand be­fore he was able to ac­cess his bail and reap­peared 20 times be­fore the case was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed in March 2014. 

A High Court Mas­ter sub­se­quent­ly award­ed $200,000 in com­pen­sa­tion in that case. 

In May 2019, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well up­held an­oth­er ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case in­volv­ing Ha­gley and or­dered $270,000 in com­pen­sa­tion. 

In that case, Ha­gley was ar­rest­ed at a friend’s home at Cedar Hill Road, Clax­ton Bay, in March 2013. 

He was charged with mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion by a po­lice of­fi­cer, who was sub­se­quent­ly charged with mur­der­ing a man from San Fer­nan­do in 2016. Ha­gley spent 113 days on re­mand be­fore the case was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by a mag­is­trate af­ter none of the wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied and no ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed in court. 

Lawyer wants PCA to act

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ha­gley’s lawyer, Ab­del Mo­hammed, called for the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) to probe the of­fi­cers in­volved in his client’s cas­es. 

Re­fer­ring to sec­tions 26 and 27 of the PCA Act, Mo­hammed not­ed that such a probe could com­mence al­though Ha­gley nev­er made a re­port to the PCA. 

The leg­is­la­tion per­mits the PCA to ini­ti­ate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion on its own ini­tia­tive or based on a com­plaint from a mem­ber of the pub­lic. 

Al­though com­plaints must be made with­in a year of the com­plainant hav­ing no­tice of the al­leged un­law­ful con­duct, the PCA can ig­nore the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od if it con­sid­ers that there are spe­cial cir­cum­stances. 

“The act al­lows them (PCA) an un­fet­tered pow­er to in­ves­ti­gate,” Mo­hammed said.