Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian
Describing the conduct of police officers involved in a malicious prosecution case as outrageous, a judge has awarded more than $200,000 in compensation and costs to a security officer.
Justice Eleanor Joye Donaldson-Honeywell on Wednesday accepted Dexter Gaulteau’s evidence that the officers beat and forced him to sign fabricated confession statements.
Through his attorneys Ganesh Saroop, instructed by Jared Jagroo and Jochelle Lootawan, Gaulteau filed the claim three years ago against the Attorney General.
Gaulteau was a security guard employed by Safeguard Securities Ltd on duty at Millennium Park, Trincity, in July 2013, when he was arrested and charged for allegedly robbing his colleague, Steve Moore, of a radio valued at $200 and stealing vehicle batteries valued at $19,500 from the work site.
Four years later, in February 2017, the robbery charge was dismissed because Moore was not interested in pursing the case, and seven months later, a magistrate dismissed the larceny charges for want of prosecution.
In the court documents, Gaulteau claimed he was coerced to sign the confession documents while being kept in deplorable conditions at the police station.
He claimed he was also tapped on the head and threatened that he would be beaten “mercilessly”. Gaulteau said he maintained his innocence, but the officers did not record his verbal responses to the accusations, including alibi information.
The judge found that the circumstances of inconsistent content, illogical inclusions and omissions from the statements, lack of any other circumstantial evidence, eye-witnesses or any basis to suspect Gaulteau, made it reasonable that despite a confession, further investigations ought to have been conducted.
“In this instance of prosecutions mounted solely based on confessions, the claimant succeeds in proving that the officers did not have the required reasonable grounds and lacked the required honest belief for prosecution.
“Additionally, based on this clear absence of reasonable and probable cause, as well as the evidence of fabricated confession statements, the court finds that the prosecution was actuated by malice,” the judge ruled.
In awarding $30,000 in exemplary damages, Donaldson-Honeywell stated that it represented the outrageous conduct on the part of the officers and to deter the recurrence of such behaviour.
Gaulteau was also awarded $150,000 in general damages, plus interest at 2.5 per cent and special damages in the amount of $18,500 plus interest at 1.5 per cent. The interest started from October 20, 2020. The court also awarded $40,537.13 in prescribed costs. Representing the State were attorneys Ronnelle Hinds and Kendra Mark.
