Fran­cis Joseph

Collin Pe­ters, who spent one month in jail on a trumped up mar­i­jua­na charge, yes­ter­day was award­ed more than $200,000 in dam­ages, in­ter­ests and costs. Pe­ters was present in court when Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones award­ed the dam­ages. Jones, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court, award­ed Pe­ters $150,000 along with 12 per cent in­ter­est as gen­er­al dam­ages; $20,000 and six per cent in­ter­est as spe­cial dam­ages and $10,000 and six per cent in­ter­est as ex­em­plary dam­ages.

She al­so or­dered that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al pay $36,000 in costs. He was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram. The court heard that in 2001, Pe­ters need­ed a place to stay, and his friend, Solomon Yhanes gave him lodg­ing at Ran­cho Que­ma­do Road. On Sep­tem­ber 12, 2001, Pe­ters be­came ill with fever, back pain, di­ar­rhoea and was pass­ing blood in his stool and urine. Pe­ters said he had dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing so he went to Dr Arthur Chen. He was giv­en med­ica­tion in the form of drips and tablets. Two days lat­er, Pe­ters' con­di­tion wors­ened as he could not walk by him­self. He re­turned to the doc­tor and was giv­en more med­ica­tion.

While at home, he heard a bang­ing on his door and when he opened it, he saw four men hold­ing guns. They asked for Yhanes. They want­ed to know who was sell­ing drugs to Yhanes. Pe­ters said he knew noth­ing about that but he was tak­en away in his sick con­di­tion. He was tak­en to the Point Fortin round­about where they came up­on a group of po­lice of­fi­cers. Pe­ters said he was ac­cused of cov­er­ing for Yhanes. When he said he knew noth­ing about Yhanes, he was told by one of the of­fi­cers: "Al­right, well you go­ing down." He was lat­er charged with be­ing in pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na. Pe­ters de­nied he was ever in pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na.

Pe­ters said he re­mained in prison for one month be­fore he was giv­en bail. A pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry was held at the Siparia Mag­is­trates' Court and he was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al. When the tri­al end­ed in the San Fer­nan­do High Court on Oc­to­ber 15, 2008, he was found not guilty by a ju­ry. Pe­ters said he suf­fered emo­tion­al stress, trau­ma, and em­bar­rass­ment as a re­sult of this charge. He said he had paid lawyers $25,000 to rep­re­sent him in both the High Court and Mag­is­trates' Court.