Derek Achong

A 38-year-old of south Trinidad, who was beat­en by po­lice and framed for a rob­bery and a bur­glary in 2015, has been award­ed over $400,000 in com­pen­sa­tion. 

Ak­il An­der­son Samuel, of La Ro­maine, filed his law­suit against the State in Oc­to­ber 2019 and ob­tained a de­fault judg­ment af­ter the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al failed to file a de­fence to the law­suit with­in the al­lot­ted time. 

High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der was tasked with as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion for Samuel and com­plet­ed the process, ear­li­er this week.

Ac­cord­ing to Samuel’s court fil­ings, which were ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, he was de­tained by po­lice while at­tend­ing a Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) meet­ing at the Egypt Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School on No­vem­ber 5, 2015. 

The of­fi­cers ac­cused Samuel of be­ing re­spon­si­ble for a rob­bery of a sto­ry and a bur­glary of a home, which al­leged­ly took place sev­er­al months ear­li­er, and he was ar­rest­ed in front of his daugh­ter, her class­mates, teach­ers, and the prin­ci­pal of the school. 

Samuel was tak­en to the Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion where he was in­ter­ro­gat­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers. 

Dur­ing the in­ter­ro­ga­tion, Samuel re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing, was al­leged­ly slapped three times with a sta­tion di­ary book, and punched sev­er­al times. 

“The said po­lice of­fi­cers then de­mand­ed that the Claimant sign a writ­ten state­ment that was pre­pared be­fore­hand, and the Claimant re­fused and was slapped about his face and head when he re­fused to sign same,” Samuel’s lawyers said. 

They claimed Samuel re­mained de­tained in an un­san­i­tary and over­crowd­ed cell for four days be­fore he was even­tu­al­ly charged for rob­bing a cloth­ing store and for break­ing and en­ter­ing in­to a dwelling house on dif­fer­ent days. 

Af­ter mak­ing his first court ap­pear­ance, Samuel re­mained re­mand­ed for al­most three months as he could not ac­cess bail. 

The charge over the cloth­ing store rob­bery was dis­missed as the ev­i­dence was in­con­sis­tent and Samuel did not fit the de­scrip­tion of the per­pe­tra­tor. 

The sec­ond charge was dis­missed as the home-own­er stat­ed that Samuel was not the per­son, who bur­gled his home. 

In the law­suit, Samuel’s lawyers Ab­del and Shabaana Mo­hammed al­leged that po­lice did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to pros­e­cute him. They al­so al­leged that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was not per­formed in ac­cor­dance with the po­lice’s Stand­ing Or­ders and that iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades should have been per­formed be­fore he was charged. 

In her writ­ten de­ci­sion, Mas­ter Alexan­der or­dered $285,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment, and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. 

Alexan­der crit­i­cised the cir­cum­stances of Samuel’s ar­rest as she ac­cept­ed that his shame, hu­mil­i­a­tion, and psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age were on­go­ing.

“In­stead of turn­ing up on the school com­pound to em­bar­rass him, the ex­er­cise of some re­straint and good sense would have avoid­ed such ir­repara­ble dam­age,” Alexan­der said. 

“At the end of the base­less pros­e­cu­tion, the claimant’s rep­u­ta­tion was dam­aged and he was left to live with that stig­ma and hu­mil­i­a­tion for the rest of his life,” she added. 

Alexan­der or­dered $40,000 for the as­sault and bat­tery by the po­lice of­fi­cers and an ad­di­tion­al $40,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to high­light the of­fi­cers’ op­pres­sive con­duct in the case. 

The State was al­so or­dered to pay $7,500 to cov­er the le­gal costs Samuel in­curred in de­fend­ing the charges and al­most $36,000 for the costs ex­pend­ed in pur­su­ing the law­suit. 

The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Rachael Ja­cob and Avaria Niles.