SASCHA WIL­SON

In award­ing more than $225,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a ma­son who was charged un­der the now-lapsed An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion, a judge found the po­lice used the State of Emer­gency (SOE) as a cov­er to pin a false charge against him.

De­liv­er­ing the rul­ing in favour of Mark Hug­gins in a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion law­suit yes­ter­day in the San Fer­nan­do High Court, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad found the po­lice of­fi­cer act­ed with mal­ice and il­le­gal­ly.

“I found it in­cred­i­ble that they would al­lege (Hug­gins) be­ing a gang mem­ber was in­volved in rob­beries and not even a rob­bery could be iden­ti­fied. I found there was mal­ice,” said Ram­per­sad.

Hug­gins was one of the hun­dreds of peo­ple ar­rest­ed un­der the 2011 SOE but re­leased af­ter the State dis­con­tin­ued pro­ceed­ings against them.

Hug­gins was charged in Au­gust 2011 with be­ing a gang mem­ber and re­mand­ed in prison un­til his re­lease on Sep­tem­ber 29, that year. Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ash­ton Khadoo claimed he knew for three years and saw him sev­er­al times with peo­ple known to be in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Khadoo said he re­ceived in­for­ma­tion Hug­gins was in­volved in rob­beries and the sale of nar­cotics in the Pleas­antville area. How­ev­er, Hug­gins, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram, de­nied the of­fi­cer’s al­le­ga­tions.

In his judg­ment, the judge found PC Khadoo’s ac­tions and the man­ner in which he brought the charge against Hug­gins were in­dica­tive of an im­prop­er mo­tive.

“That im­prop­er mo­tive was ob­vi­ous­ly to hide un­der the blan­ket of the State of Emer­gency and the pro­vi­sions of the then-re­cent An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion to try to pin a charge on a per­son who was prob­a­bly sus­pect­ed of il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, but against whom there was ab­solute­ly no ev­i­dence. It was an act which was op­pres­sive and, in the court’s re­spect­ful view, il­le­gal.”

Dis­miss­ing the al­le­ga­tions that Hug­gins was in­volved in rob­beries or il­le­gal sale of nar­cotics, the judge said, “The knowl­edge, in my mind, is in­dica­tive of a de­lib­er­ate abuse of the State of Emer­gency to op­press the claimant lead­ing to a def­i­nite in­fer­ence of mal­ice which is quite apart from the in­fer­ence which arose as a re­sult of the fail­ure to have any rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest and charge the claimant.”

Hug­gins was award­ed $225,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages to­geth­er with in­ter­est from Sep­tem­ber 2015, spe­cial dam­ages of $1,000 to­geth­er with in­ter­est from Sep­tem­ber 2011 and ex­em­plary dam­ages in the sum of $30,000. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the judge or­dered the State to pay the le­gal costs in the sum of $48,162.66.