Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer, who was pros­e­cut­ed for wast­ing po­lice time in re­la­tion to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­port against her abu­sive po­lice of­fi­cer hus­band, is set to re­ceive a lit­tle over $200,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for the woman, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held due to the na­ture of the case, as she up­held her ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, in late 2015, the woman was forced to move out of her mar­i­tal home with her son af­ter her hus­band re­port­ed­ly threat­ened and as­sault­ed her.

The woman made re­ports to se­nior of­fi­cers and ob­tained a pro­tec­tion or­der against her hus­band months be­fore she was due to at­tain re­tire­ment age.

Days af­ter the or­der was grant­ed with her hus­band’s con­sent, he (the hus­band) re­port­ed­ly con­tact­ed a se­nior of­fi­cer and told him that if she re­turned home he would kill her and him­self.

The se­nior of­fi­cer wrote to the then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to raise con­cerns over the hus­band’s claims. The cor­re­spon­dence was in­clud­ed in the case and was con­sid­ered by Jus­tice Gob­in.

The woman even­tu­al­ly took a de­ci­sion to re­turn to the mar­i­tal home, which she con­tributed fi­nan­cial­ly to, as she could no longer af­ford to pay rent.

She went to the house with her son on June 6, 2017, and found the gates chained and pad­locked.

She sought the as­sis­tance of her nephew-in-law, who as­sist­ed her in cut­ting the locks to gain ac­cess to the house.

When her hus­band came home, he ques­tioned why the locks were re­moved, drew a cut­lass and again threat­ened to kill her.

She made a re­port at the Mal­abar Po­lice Post and then re­turned to the house.

She claimed that a po­lice pa­trol vis­it­ed the house and warned her to not make an­oth­er re­port if she re­mained there and the sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lat­ed. She even­tu­al­ly left with her son. Days lat­er, she was con­tact­ed by an of­fi­cer and she agreed to be in­ter­viewed.

In De­cem­ber 2017, she was charged with the waste­ful em­ploy­ment of the po­lice via sum­mons.

She made sev­er­al court ap­pear­ances be­fore the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) dis­con­tin­ued the pros­e­cu­tion in May 2019.

Af­ter she filed the law­suit al­leg­ing that she suf­fered dis­tress and em­bar­rass­ment over be­ing pros­e­cut­ed, the of­fi­cers who were in­volved in the in­ci­dent in June 2017 de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

They claimed that they re­ceived the re­port and in­ves­ti­gat­ed but found no ev­i­dence on CCTV cam­era footage of her hus­band threat­en­ing her with a cut­lass as claimed.

They al­so claimed that they at­tempt­ed to take an of­fi­cial re­port from her when she first vis­it­ed the sta­tion but she left be­fore the process was com­plet­ed.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Gob­in found that the of­fi­cer, who charged the woman, did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to do so based on er­rors in the way the charge was draft­ed.

“I have found that the charge was de­fec­tive be­yond re­pair, was a nul­li­ty and that the Claimant was charged with an of­fence that is not known in law,” she said.

“This was suf­fi­cient in my view to es­tab­lish the ab­sence of rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause in the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances of this case,” she added.

She al­so in­ferred mal­ice from the of­fi­cers’ con­duct.

“I have not ar­rived at this find­ing light­ly and wish to make clear that I have not found ac­tu­al mal­ice in the sense of spite or ill will to­ward the Claimant, but an im­prop­er mo­tive which arose as a re­sult of a lack of sen­si­tiv­i­ty and sym­pa­thy to the Claimant’s predica­ment, stereo­typ­ing the vic­tim as the one to blame,” she said.

In or­der­ing $205,000 in gen­er­al and ex­em­plary dam­ages, Jus­tice Gob­in crit­i­cised the of­fi­cers for their han­dling of her do­mes­tic vi­o­lence com­plaint.

“The ap­proach of the po­lice con­firmed the abuser’s dis­dain­ful view of the do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or­der, that it was just a piece of pa­per, it meant noth­ing. This is hard­ly the mes­sage the po­lice are ex­pect­ed to en­dorse,” Jus­tice Gob­in said.

“Egre­gious­ly, the abuser was not held to ac­count while the vic­tim who had made the re­port of his abuse was charged with an of­fence when there was no ju­ris­dic­tion for do­ing so and when, as I have found, it was ac­tu­at­ed by mal­ice,” she added.

As part of the judg­ment, Jus­tice Gob­in or­dered the State to pay the woman’s le­gal costs.

The woman was rep­re­sent­ed by Ab­del Mo­hammed and Sha­nia Sinanan. Tri­cia Ram­lo­gan, Van­dana Ra­mad­har, and Domonique Bernard rep­re­sent­ed the AG’s Of­fice.