Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A con­trac­tor and his em­ploy­ee from Barataria have lost their law­suit over be­ing de­tained as part of a rob­bery in­ves­ti­ga­tion in 2021.

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment af­ter a brief tri­al at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed a false im­pris­on­ment case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al brought by Kenya Pit­man and Michael Joseph.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad found that the po­lice of­fi­cers, who ar­rest­ed and de­tained them for over a day be­fore re­leas­ing them with­out be­ing charged, act­ed rea­son­ably in the cir­cum­stances.

“In this case, the po­lice act­ed in a proac­tive and pro­por­tion­ate man­ner, and the ev­i­dence has con­vinced this court that their ac­tions were de­void of mal­ice, as there ex­ist­ed rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to de­tain the claimants,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

De­spite the out­come of the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad still said he had em­pa­thy for the duo for the neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ence they en­dured in po­lice cus­tody un­til they were cleared of any wrong­do­ing and re­leased.

He said that cit­i­zens had to un­der­stand that gen­uine mis­takes may oc­cur while the po­lice are un­der pres­sure from the pub­lic to solve crimes.

“Cit­i­zen­ship is not on­ly char­ac­terised by the re­ceipt of ben­e­fits, but the con­cept al­so im­pos­es as­pects of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and at times in­con­ve­nience,” he said.

“Loud cries of ‘ar­rest them’ are made un­til proac­tive at­tempts at law en­force­ment oc­ca­sion in­con­ve­nience or im­pact up­on rights on a per­son­al lev­el,” he added.

While de­feat in civ­il lit­i­ga­tion usu­al­ly re­sults in the los­er be­ing or­dered to pay the vic­to­ri­ous par­ty’s le­gal costs for the law­suit, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the duo and the State to cov­er their re­spec­tive le­gal costs for the failed case.

The duo was ar­rest­ed in D’Abadie on Oc­to­ber 21, 2021.

They claimed that af­ter fin­ish­ing work at a site in Ari­ma, they went to vis­it a mu­tu­al friend, who was cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day.

They claimed that they were parked in front of her house and were stand­ing out­side Pit­man’s car while wait­ing for her to come out­side when two un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cles pulled up.

They claimed that they were threat­ened by sev­er­al armed po­lice of­fi­cers and ar­rest­ed af­ter they ad­mit­ted that they were from Mal­ick, Barataria.

They claimed that al­though they de­nied be­ing in­volved in the rob­bery and noth­ing il­le­gal was found in their pos­ses­sion, the of­fi­cers still ar­rest­ed them and told them that they were go­ing to frame them for it (the rob­bery).

They were tak­en to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion, where they were de­tained be­fore be­ing re­leased.

In de­fence of the case, the of­fi­cers claimed that the duo was ar­rest­ed be­cause one of them fit the de­scrip­tion of a sus­pect in an armed rob­bery of a maxi taxi, which oc­curred near where they were found.

They claimed that the men were re­leased af­ter they con­duct­ed fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and ar­rest­ed the sus­pect who ac­tu­al­ly com­mit­ted the rob­bery.

Christophe Ro­driguez and Randy Tikah rep­re­sent­ed the duo. Tr­isha Ram­lo­gan and Brent James rep­re­sent­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice.