Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay more than $175,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a mem­ber of the T&T Coast Guard, who was ar­rest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed for breach­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic af­ter hav­ing a lime at his apart­ment build­ing in May 2021.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Lead­ing Hand Cody Mor­ris as he up­held his wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment, and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the end of a brief tri­al at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Mor­ris was ar­rest­ed as po­lice of­fi­cers raid­ed his apart­ment build­ing at Rail­way Road, Arou­ca, on May 20, 2021.

Po­lice of­fi­cers claimed that Mor­ris and over a dozen of his friends were found lim­ing and gam­bling in the en­closed yard and front porch of Mor­ris’ rent­ed apart­ment.

They were all charged for breach­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions, which at the time pro­hib­it­ed cit­i­zens from gath­er­ing in pub­lic in groups of more than five.

They were al­so charged for as­sem­bling for il­le­gal gam­bling un­der the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act.

Mor­ris and his friends made sev­er­al court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charges were dis­missed for want of pros­e­cu­tion af­ter the po­lice of­fi­cer, who charged them, failed to at­tend court and dis­close ev­i­dence against them.

Tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day, Mor­ris claimed that on the day of the in­ci­dent, he in­vit­ed four friends to his apart­ment to lime and make a pot of cow heel soup.

He ad­mit­ted that they were play­ing cards when po­lice raid­ed the prop­er­ty but de­nied that they were gam­bling as al­leged.

In his ev­i­dence, PC Evans Mitchell, who charged Mor­ris and his friends, was called on by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad to ex­plain his ab­sences from the crim­i­nal case, which led to it be­ing dis­missed.

Mitchell said he missed the first hear­ing as he was in the process of ob­tain­ing their crim­i­nal record trac­ing.

While he claimed that he missed the sec­ond hear­ing as he test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, Mitchell ad­mit­ted that he did not sup­ply a med­ical re­port.

Mitchell could not ex­plain his ab­sence from the third hear­ing but not­ed that he was present when the charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by the mag­is­trate.

He al­so ad­mit­ted that he and his col­leagues did not have a search war­rant when they raid­ed Mor­ris’ prop­er­ty, as such was not re­quired once they sus­pect­ed that a breach of the reg­u­la­tions was oc­cur­ring.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did find that more peo­ple were present than Mor­ris claimed.

How­ev­er, he ruled that Mor­ris and his friends were wrong­ly ar­rest­ed and charged, as the reg­u­la­tions did not ad­e­quate­ly de­fine whether com­mon spaces in shared res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties, such as Mor­ris’s, could be con­sid­ered a pub­lic place.

“The court is con­vinced that this was a space that was not open to mem­bers of the pub­lic, but that any­one who was present in that space would have ob­tained the con­sent of the ten­ant,” he said.

“The court finds that the area was pri­vate and would not have qual­i­fied as a pub­lic space un­der the reg­u­la­tions,” he added.

He al­so ques­tioned why Mitchell and his col­league did not seek le­gal ad­vice on the pa­ra­me­ters of the reg­u­la­tions be­fore charg­ing Mor­ris and his friends.

“The right to en­joy­ment of one’s prop­er­ty can on­ly be de­prived in very clear cir­cum­stances ... Po­lice could not have en­tered in­to the pri­vate space with­out a search war­rant,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so crit­i­cised Mor­ris and his friends, some of whom were al­so mem­bers of the T&T Coast Guard, for en­gag­ing in the ac­tion they did dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“While the claimant was in fact reck­less giv­en the up­surge in the virus, they (he and his friends) were not in breach of the law,” he said.

“There must be some sort of so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as he is a mem­ber of the Coast Guard ... The con­duct of the claimant was rep­re­hen­si­ble.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered $75,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment and $80,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

He al­so or­dered $10,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages for the of­fi­cers’ con­duct in breach­ing Mor­ris’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right.

He said that Mor­ris may have been en­ti­tled to more but re­duced the fig­ure based on his con­duct dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

The State was al­so or­dered to pay $12,500 in spe­cial dam­ages, which rep­re­sents his le­gal fees to de­fend the charges.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the State to pay his le­gal costs for the law­suit, he re­fused to or­der $1,500 in com­pen­sa­tion, which rep­re­sents the al­leged fee Mor­ris claimed he paid to a Jus­tice of the Peace (JP) to be grant­ed bail.

Stat­ing that the JP should not have charged the fee, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ad­vised Mor­ris to make a re­port to the po­lice.

“This is not a mon­ey-mak­ing ex­er­cise. It is an ex­er­cise of a pub­lic func­tion. JPs are ap­point­ed as in­ter­me­di­aries in the jus­tice sys­tem,” he said.

Mor­ris was rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams and Mari­ah Ram­rat­tan. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Amaniy Ali and Cathy-Ann Mathu­ra.