RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

A le­gal bat­tle over the seizure of adult sex toys from a lo­cal busi­ness has led to a rul­ing in favour of the claimant, Rogue Adult Toys and Lin­gerie.

The case, heard be­fore Madame Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams, in­volved the own­er of a small busi­ness that has op­er­at­ed suc­cess­ful­ly for two years. The case was filed against the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The busi­ness own­er, who im­ports and sells adult toys and lin­gerie, found her­self at odds with cus­toms au­thor­i­ties af­ter a ship­ment of adult toys ar­rived in Trinidad in Au­gust 2023.

In Ju­ly 2023, the claimant pur­chased a bulk or­der of adult toys to re­plen­ish her in­ven­to­ry and fill pre-or­ders. How­ev­er, up­on clear­ance of the goods at cus­toms in Au­gust, the claimant was no­ti­fied that 13 ar­ti­cles from her ship­ment were seized be­cause they were deemed “ob­scene and in­de­cent.” How­ev­er, up­on in­spec­tion of her goods, the claimant dis­cov­ered that 18 items, in­clud­ing high-val­ue toys, were miss­ing. The miss­ing items in­clud­ed vi­brat­ing dil­dos and mas­sagers, with a to­tal val­ue of over $2,500. De­spite this, the claimant was still re­quired to pay the full cus­toms du­ties for the en­tire ship­ment.

The claimant, who re­lies on her small busi­ness for in­come, is­sued a le­gal chal­lenge against the cus­toms de­ci­sion, ar­gu­ing that the seizure was il­le­gal, un­fair, and vi­o­lat­ed her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. She claimed the de­ci­sion was ir­ra­tional and sub­ject­ing her busi­ness to un­equal treat­ment, giv­en that sim­i­lar items were be­ing sold by com­peti­tors in re­tail stores with­out is­sue.

The claimant sought var­i­ous forms of re­lief, in­clud­ing the re­turn of the seized items, de­c­la­ra­tions that her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been vi­o­lat­ed, and dam­ages for the breach.

In a rul­ing de­liv­ered on No­vem­ber 13, the court de­clared that the de­ci­sion to seize the goods was il­le­gal, ir­ra­tional, and un­fair. The court al­so found that the claimant’s rights to lib­er­ty, prop­er­ty, and equal­i­ty be­fore the law had been vi­o­lat­ed, award­ing her $30,000 in dam­ages.

The is­sue of costs has been ad­journed to De­cem­ber 13, when a fur­ther hear­ing will take place.