Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Three T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) re­cruits have failed in their bid to be con­firmed pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of their law­suit over be­ing eject­ed af­ter com­plet­ing ba­sic train­ing.

De­liv­er­ing a rul­ing on Wednes­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad re­fused to grant an or­der al­low­ing Ja­mari Cha­con, 23, Jar­ren Coombs, 24, and 24-year-old Kavelle Serette to “pass out” with their fel­low re­cruits dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny card­ed for Sat­ur­day.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said that there was a greater risk of prej­u­dice to the TTDF if the stay was grant­ed and he lat­er ruled that its de­ci­sion to block the trio was not ir­ra­tional.

“The in­tegri­ty of the in­sti­tu­tion and the pub­lic con­fi­dence that on­ly per­sons of the high­est in­tegri­ty are en­list­ed is of para­mount im­por­tance,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

“There is am­ple in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main as to the dis­as­trous con­se­quences which flow when ill-suit­ed per­sons are en­list­ed in­to the se­cu­ri­ty forces. They present a clear and present dan­ger,” he added.

He not­ed that if the trio was even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in the case, they could be retroac­tive­ly en­list­ed and be com­pen­sat­ed for any men­tal an­guish they claimed they suf­fered and they could prove.

In their court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the trio’s lawyers claimed that they sought em­ploy­ment from the TTDF in a re­cruit­ment dri­ve, last year.

They claimed that their clients be­gan four months of in­tense ba­sic train­ing in Jan­u­ary and com­plet­ed it last week Thurs­day.

The fol­low­ing day, the trio was called in­to a meet­ing with the TTDF’s hu­man re­source per­son­nel who ques­tioned them over poly­graph tests they un­der­went when they ap­plied to be po­lice of­fi­cers pre­vi­ous­ly.

Cha­con and Coombs said that they nev­er re­ceived the re­sults of the test but as­sumed they failed as they were not con­tact­ed for the next stage of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­cruit­ment process.

Ser­rette ad­mit­ted that he failed the test in 2021 but passed it when he took it again, last year.

The trio’s lawyers claimed that af­ter they made the ad­mis­sions, they were co­erced in­to sign­ing doc­u­ments be­fore be­ing in­formed that they were dis­missed from the TTDF due to “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in vet­ting”.

In the law­suit, the trio’s le­gal team con­tend­ed that the TTDF’s de­ci­sion was un­rea­son­able, ir­ra­tional, un­fair, and breached the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

Through the law­suit, the trio is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over what tran­spired and an or­der quash­ing the de­ci­sion to dis­charge them.

Their lawyers are al­so claim­ing that if the case is de­ter­mined in their clients’ favour af­ter they turn 25-years-old and can no longer en­list, they should each be paid $1.78 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion which rep­re­sents the salary and ben­e­fits they would have re­ceived had they not been dis­charged.

The trio was rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams, Mari­ah Ram­rat­tan, and An­tho­ny Moore.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that they had not filed an ap­peal chal­leng­ing Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s de­ci­sion on the stay, up to late yes­ter­day.