Derek Achong

A 54-year-old man from St James has sued the State over be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged af­ter he was seen walk­ing near a stolen car that was parked in his com­mu­ni­ty. 

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Michael Craig filed his wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment, and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, yes­ter­day. 

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Craig was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 7, 2021. 

Craig, a pipeline main­te­nance su­per­vi­sor with the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), was walk­ing near his home when he saw a group of po­lice of­fi­cers stand­ing around a car that was parked at the side of the road. 

Craig ad­mit­ted that he called out to the of­fi­cers and asked what they were do­ing. 

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly asked him if he was re­spon­si­ble for the car and he said no but in­di­cat­ed that he found it (the car) at­trac­tive. 

The of­fi­cers then asked Craig to ac­com­pa­ny them to the po­lice sta­tion. 

“The Claimant will­ing­ly com­plied and of­fered his as­sis­tance to the po­lice of­fi­cers not think­ing he was a sus­pect for any­thing,” his lawyer Roshan To­ta-Ma­haraj said. 

To­ta-Ma­haraj claimed that while at the po­lice sta­tion, his client was told that he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for be­ing a mem­ber of a car theft ring. 

Al­though Craig de­nied any wrong­do­ing, he was still de­tained and in­ter­ro­gat­ed. 

Four days lat­er, he was charged for pos­ses­sion of a stolen ve­hi­cle. 

Craig was grant­ed bail dur­ing his first court ap­pear­ance but was briefly re­mand­ed be­fore he could ac­cess bail. 

The case was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by a mag­is­trate in Oc­to­ber 2022 af­ter pros­e­cu­tors re­peat­ed­ly failed to com­ply with court or­ders and to dis­close the ev­i­dence against Craig. The of­fi­cer, who charged Craig, al­so failed to at­tend the fi­nal hear­ing. 

To­ta-Ma­haraj sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter threat­en­ing the law­suit in June 2024. 

The AG’s Of­fice re­spond­ed over two months lat­er and called up­on Craig to hold off on fil­ing the case to give State at­tor­neys time to in­ves­ti­gate his claims and re­spond to them. 

To­ta-Ma­haraj filed the case af­ter no re­sponse was even­tu­al­ly sent. 

In the law­suit, Craig is claim­ing that the po­lice did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to pros­e­cute him and act­ed with mal­ice.  Stat­ing that the po­lice of­fi­cers’ ac­tions were high-hand­ed, in­sult­ing, ma­li­cious and op­pres­sive, To­ta-Ma­haraj said: “The De­fen­dant ma­li­cious­ly abused its pow­ers to se­cure the Claimant’s ar­rest, de­ten­tion, and pros­e­cu­tion with­out any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

Craig is seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the pe­ri­od he was de­tained and for the dis­tress, hu­mil­i­a­tion and em­bar­rass­ment he suf­fered from be­ing charged. 

Craig’s case will now be as­signed to a High Court Judge. 

He is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Lemuel Mur­phy.