Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $1.2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to eight women for abuse they suf­fered while re­mand­ed to the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca when they were ju­ve­niles.

High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion late last month as he up­held the as­sault and bat­tery law­suits brought by the women, whose iden­ti­ties were with­held as they were mi­nors at the time.

Jus­tice James or­dered be­tween $75,000 and $155,000 in dam­ages for each of the women based on what was done to them and the in­juries they sus­tained.

He al­so or­dered $50,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages for each to con­demn the ac­tions of the prison of­fi­cers re­spon­si­ble and de­ter such con­duct in the fu­ture.

The law­suits, brought by their at­tor­neys Ger­ald Ramdeen and Dar­ryl Heer­alal, re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent at the prison on June 25, 2015.

Most of the women, be­tween the ages of 15 and 17 at the time, were re­mand­ed to the prison for breach­ing rules at St Jude’s Home for Girls.

One was re­mand­ed af­ter be­ing charged with wound­ing, while one was re­mand­ed by a mag­is­trate, on her moth­er’s re­quest, af­ter she ran away from home sev­er­al times.

The women claimed that a group of fe­male prison of­fi­cers were con­duct­ing a search for con­tra­band in their dor­mi­to­ry when they be­gan at­tack­ing them.

The women said they were hand­cuffed by the of­fi­cers, who kicked them and beat them with ba­tons.

They claimed that they were then placed in an un­san­i­tary cell with­out be­ing tak­en for med­ical treat­ment.

One of the women, who was award­ed the high­est com­pen­sa­tion by Jus­tice James, was stripped and forced to pa­rade around the prison bare-breast­ed be­fore be­ing placed in the cell with the oth­ers.

They all filed sep­a­rate law­suits, which were as­signed to Jus­tice James and de­ter­mined to­geth­er.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al de­nied any wrong­do­ing as it claimed that the of­fi­cers used rea­son­able force to quell a dis­tur­bance ini­ti­at­ed by the women, who they said were re­fus­ing in­struc­tions and in­cit­ing dis­or­der. It al­leged that the of­fi­cers’ con­duct was not ex­ces­sive, ma­li­cious or abu­sive.

In up­hold­ing the cas­es, Jus­tice James crit­i­cised the of­fi­cers for fail­ing to bring con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous op­er­a­tional and use-of-force records of the in­ci­dent.

He found that the force used against the then-teenagers was ex­ces­sive and dis­pro­por­tion­ate in the cir­cum­stances.

Jus­tice James said, “Across all eight claims, there­fore, I find that even where ini­tial in­ter­ven­tion was nec­es­sary, the sub­se­quent use of ba­tons, kicks and tight re­straints against mi­nors in State cus­tody ex­ceed­ed law­ful bounds.”

“The cu­mu­la­tive ev­i­dence of mul­ti­ple of­fi­cers beat­ing in­di­vid­ual, of­ten hand­cuffed, ju­ve­niles, com­bined with the de­grad­ing con­di­tions of their sub­se­quent con­fine­ment with­out bed­ding or san­i­ta­tion, con­firms that the force used was a se­ri­ous abuse of State pow­er rather than a nec­es­sary dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sure,” he added.

Jus­tice James not­ed that the of­fi­cers had to ap­ply spe­cial care to the women as op­posed to adult pris­on­ers, as they were mi­nors at the time.

“Ad­her­ence to these strict stan­dards is not mere­ly a mat­ter of prison dis­ci­pline but is fun­da­men­tal to the State’s in­ter­na­tion­al and con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tions re­gard­ing the Rights of a Child, en­sur­ing that the ‘time bomb’ of sys­temic vi­o­lence is not fu­elled by the very au­thor­i­ties man­dat­ed to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble,” he said.

In or­der­ing the ex­em­plary dam­ages, Jus­tice James not­ed that the as­saults by the of­fi­cers were not a mo­men­tary lapse in judg­ment or spon­ta­neous.

“Rather, they in­volved the de­lib­er­ate and ex­ces­sive use of force by prison of­fi­cers against ju­ve­niles in State cus­tody, many of whom were re­strained, out­num­bered, and in­ca­pable of pos­ing any mean­ing­ful threat at ma­te­r­i­al times,” Jus­tice James said.

He al­so or­dered the State to pay the group’s le­gal costs for the law­suits. Jus­tice James al­so or­dered two and a half per cent in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion to be cal­cu­lat­ed per an­num from 2019, when the cas­es were filed, to this year when the judg­ment was giv­en.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Evan­na Welch, Shali­ni Singh, Rachel Theo­phuilus, Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj, Rachel Wright, and Jus­tay Guer­ra.