DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has agreed to pay com­pen­sa­tion to a man from Ari­ma who was wrong­ful­ly ar­rest­ed and false­ly im­pris­oned by po­lice of­fi­cers three years ago.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that at­tor­neys from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty for the ac­tion of the po­lice of­fi­cers three days be­fore Jevon Craig’s law­suit was set to be­gin be­fore High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, late last month.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion and en­tered a con­sent or­der.

How­ev­er, he did not set the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to Craig as such would be as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Sher­lanne Pierre on No­vem­ber 8.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, just be­fore mid­night on Oc­to­ber 26, 2021, a large group of po­lice of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant for il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion at Craig’s home at Uni­ty Lane, Cara­po.

Craig claimed that he was tak­en out­side and made to kneel on some grav­el.

“He was told to cross his feet, and the of­fi­cer then mashed down on his feet,” his lawyers Lemuel Mur­phy and Roshan To­ta-Ma­haraj said.

Al­though the of­fi­cers did not find any­thing il­le­gal in his house or car, Craig was still ar­rest­ed.

He was placed in a hold­ing cell at the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion for sev­er­al hours be­fore he was re­leased with­out be­ing charged.

When he re­turned home, he re­alised that his car keys, which were used by the of­fi­cers to gain ac­cess to his ve­hi­cle, were miss­ing.

He re­turned to the po­lice sta­tion to en­quire about the keys but was told that they keys were not there or with the of­fi­cers, who con­duct­ed the search.

He claimed that he was forced to pur­chase re­place­ment keys and change the locks on the ve­hi­cle, which he had ob­tained through a rent-to-own arrange­ment at a rate of $300 a day.

Af­ter his lawyers filed the case, State at­tor­neys filed a de­fence in which they claimed that they could not lo­cate records of his ar­rest at the sta­tion to con­firm or de­ny his al­le­ga­tions.

Short­ly af­ter they filed an amend­ed de­fence in which they claimed that they man­aged to lo­cate doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence.

They al­so claimed that the of­fi­cers did have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to de­tain Craig as they con­tend­ed that his ar­rest was based on re­ports and al­most a week of sur­veil­lance.

Through the law­suit, Craig was seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the em­bar­rass­ment and dis­tress he en­dured and for the loss of use of his ve­hi­cle.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Evan­na Welch and Sara Mus­lim.