Derek Achong

Let the chips fall where they may.

These were the words ut­tered by re­tired Judge Stan­ley John as he ad­dressed the pub­lic for the first time since be­ing ap­point­ed to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a $20 mil­lion ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion judg­ment in favour of nine men for­mer­ly ac­cused of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man.

In a tele­vised state­ment broad­cast­ed yes­ter­day, John ac­knowl­edged that cit­i­zens were "jus­ti­fi­ably ap­palled and out­raged" by the out­come of the case but called on them to bear pa­tience un­til he and re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Pamela Schullera-Hinds com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

 "While the ire of the na­tion has un­der­stand­ably been in­flamed by this mat­ter, I re­spect­ful­ly urge the gen­er­al pub­lic to with­hold judg­ment un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete," he told the pop­u­la­tion.

John as­sured cit­i­zens and staff at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs that their in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be "fair and fear­less."

"Please note that this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which I lead, is in­ter­est­ed in one thing and one thing on­ly, that is to say, un­cov­er­ing and re­port­ing with­in our terms of ref­er­ence the truth about how the de­fault judg­ment came to be en­tered and dam­ages award­ed against the State," he said.

"In do­ing so, we shall act fear­less­ly but fair­ly, ex­pe­di­tious­ly but care­ful­ly, ob­jec­tive­ly and im­par­tial­ly and with scrupu­lous re­gard for the re­quire­ments of due process and the rule of law."

John along with Schullera-Hinds, who was last as­signed to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Spe­cial Branch be­fore her re­tire­ment, did not give jour­nal­ists an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask them ques­tions af­ter de­liv­er­ing the state­ment as they not­ed that their in­ves­ti­ga­tion was still at a for­ma­tive stage.

"In the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy there will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to field ques­tions from the me­dia on this mat­ter, how­ev­er, that time is not now," John said.

John promised to de­liv­er a pre­lim­i­nary re­port to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, on March 31 but es­ti­mat­ed that he and Hinds would re­quire six months to com­plete their full probe in­to what tran­spired in the case and pro­vide sev­er­al re­ports.

Pamela Schullera-Hinds

He not­ed that the full probe in­cludes a gen­er­al as­sess­ment of how the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs man­ages its civ­il lit­i­ga­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove the same.

It al­so in­cludes writ­ten re­ports to the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, on pos­si­ble dis­ci­pli­nary or crim­i­nal charges for the min­istry staff, who may be found to be cul­pa­ble in the probe.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was or­dered by Ar­mour af­ter Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, and An­to­nio Charles were each award­ed $2.1 mil­lion in dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion by Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der on Jan­u­ary 30.

While it was ini­tial­ly claimed that the men ob­tained a de­fault judg­ment from High Court Judge Joan Charles in ear­ly 2021 af­ter the AG's Of­fice en­tered an ap­pear­ance in the case but failed to de­fend it, Supreme Court Reg­is­trar and act­ing Mar­shall of the High Court Ray­mond Roberts lat­er con­firmed that the State did not par­tic­i­pate un­til the as­sess­ment of dam­ages be­fore Mas­ter Alexan­der.

Ad­dress­ing jour­nal­ists dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the min­istry's of­fice at Rich­mond Street in Port-of-Spain af­ter re­turn­ing from an of­fi­cial over­seas trip on Feb­ru­ary 1, Ar­mour sought to give a syn­op­sis of pre­lim­i­nary re­ports from an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the case, which was or­dered by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young while he (Young) was act­ing in Ar­mour's po­si­tion.

He stat­ed that af­ter the case was filed in late May 2020, it was served on the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al's Of­fice a month lat­er.

He stat­ed that the vo­lu­mi­nous file, a copy of which he dis­played dur­ing the press con­fer­ence, was re­ceived by an em­ploy­ee of the min­istry and a file was opened for the case to be as­signed to a state at­tor­ney.

"Af­ter this, the file dis­ap­peared," Ar­mour said.

"I would not al­low my­self at this time, be­cause of due process, to ut­ter what I think oc­curred but it is sin­is­ter," he added.

John and Hinds were ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate what tran­spired in the case, while for­mer Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) Judge Rol­ston Nel­son was re­tained to ad­vise Ar­mour on is­sues rel­e­vant to the miss­ing file and the prove­nance of Mas­ter Alexan­der's de­ci­sion.

On Mon­day, John is­sued a brief press re­lease in which he claimed that the miss­ing file was re­turned and hand­ed over to act­ing So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al Kar­leen Seenath, who trans­ferred it to the in­ves­tiga­tive team.

Terms of Ref­er­ence of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion

1. To en­quire in­to the facts and cir­cum­stances lead­ing to the mat­ter of Sher­von Pe­ters and oth­ers against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of T&T com­menc­ing from June 22, 2020, when ser­vice of the claim form and state­ment of the case was ef­fect­ed in­clud­ing the de­ci­sion of the High Court dat­ed Jan­u­ary 30, 2023, and cul­mi­nat­ing in the hand­ing over of the file to the act­ing So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al on Feb­ru­ary 6, 2023. 

2. To en­quire in­to and es­tab­lish the facts and cir­cum­stances re­gard­ing the role or roles played by any min­is­ter, mem­ber of the civ­il law de­part­ment or any oth­er per­son em­ployed by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in the man­age­ment and con­duct of the mat­ter. 

3. To en­quire in­to and es­tab­lish whether there has been any dere­lic­tion of du­ty, vi­o­la­tion of any law, con­flict of in­ter­est and/or breach of trust on the part of any min­is­ter, mem­ber of the civ­il law de­part­ment or any oth­er per­son em­ployed by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in the man­age­ment and con­duct of the mat­ter. 

4. To en­quire in­to and ex­am­ine the cur­rent pro­ce­dures of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs and the civ­il law de­part­ment rel­a­tive to the man­age­ment and con­duct of civ­il lit­i­ga­tion in­volv­ing the State. 

5. To make rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove the man­age­ment and con­duct of civ­il pro­ceed­ings tak­en by and against the State and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs and the civ­il law de­part­ment and to have re­course through such tech­nol­o­gy and ex­per­tise as nec­es­sary. 

6. To re­port in writ­ing to the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) any facts, cir­cum­stances or ev­i­dence which may, in the opin­ion of the in­ves­tiga­tive team, may give rise to, show or es­tab­lish the com­mis­sion of any dis­ci­pli­nary of­fence by any of­fi­cer in the ju­di­cial and le­gal ser­vice re­lat­ing the man­age­ment and con­duct of this mat­ter. 

7. To re­port in writ­ing to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) any facts, cir­cum­stances or ev­i­dence, which in the opin­ion of the in­ves­tiga­tive team, may give rise to, show or es­tab­lish the com­mis­sion of any crim­i­nal or fraud­u­lent act con­trary to the laws of T&T re­lat­ing to the man­age­ment and con­duct of this mat­ter. 

8. To make such oth­er and in­ci­den­tal in­quiries which con­cern and re­late to the sub­ject mat­ter of the in­quiry as the in­ves­tiga­tive team may deem nec­es­sary to give ef­fect to any find­ings made by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and/or rem­e­dy and pre­vent any act or con­duct as found by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and on the need, if any, for the en­act­ment of amend­ment or re­peal of any law of T&T re­lat­ed to civ­il pro­ceed­ings brought by and against the State. 

9. To is­sue a re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions to the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al with­in 60 days of the es­tab­lish­ment of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2023, with re­spect to 1, 2, 3 above and the full fi­nal re­port in six months with ref­er­ence to 4,5,6,7, and 8 above. 

About Naipaul-Cool­man's case

Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man was ab­duct­ed from her Ch­agua­nas home on De­cem­ber 19, 2006.

A $122,000 ran­som was paid by her fam­i­ly but she was not re­leased and her body was nev­er found.

Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, his broth­er Earl, Lyn­don Charles, Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin and An­to­nio Charles were even­tu­al­ly charged with the crime

Dur­ing the tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip and a 12-mem­ber ju­ry, state pros­e­cu­tors con­tend­ed that the for­mer Xtra Foods chief ex­ec­u­tive was held cap­tive in a house in Up­per La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin, be­fore she was killed and dis­mem­bered.

Through­out the tri­al, de­fence at­tor­neys point­ed out mul­ti­ple in­con­sis­ten­cies in the ev­i­dence.

They ques­tioned the men­tal health of the State's main wit­ness Keon Gloster, who claimed that he was co­erced by po­lice in­to im­pli­cat­ing the ac­cused men. They al­so al­leged that a gun linked to the kid­nap­ping crime scene was plant­ed in one of the ac­cused men's homes.

When the tri­al was at an ad­vanced stage, Mar­tin and two fel­low pris­on­ers at the Port-of-Spain State Prison staged a dar­ing es­cape dur­ing which a po­lice of­fi­cer was mur­dered. Mar­tin was shot and killed by po­lice in a shoot-out at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Fras­er was freed be­fore the ju­ry con­sid­ered the case as Jus­tice Holdip up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion al­leg­ing that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence link­ing him to the crime.

The tri­al end­ed with the ju­ry ac­quit­ting eight of the men and or­der­ing a tri­al for Earl Trim­ming­ham and Lyn­don Charles.

In de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the group, Mas­ter Alexan­der con­sid­ered the ev­i­dence of clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Isol­de Ghent-Gar­cia, who con­duct­ed de­tailed psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ments on all the men ex­cept Gloster, who was mur­dered in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Diego Mar­tin in late 2021.

Gloster's fa­ther was al­lowed to con­tin­ue to pur­sue the case and will now re­ceive the com­pen­sa­tion on be­half of his fam­i­ly in­clud­ing his two grand­chil­dren from his son.

In her re­ports, Ghent-Gar­cia stat­ed that all eight men suf­fered from Post-Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD), ma­jor de­pres­sion, and gen­er­alised anx­i­ety, which was a di­rect con­se­quence of their spend­ing al­most a decade on re­mand be­fore be­ing freed.

Mas­ter Alexan­der al­so strong­ly con­sid­ered the "hor­ren­dous" prison con­di­tions they had to en­dure be­fore their even­tu­al re­lease and the im­pact of the failed pros­e­cu­tion on the men's rep­u­ta­tions.