Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A High Court judge yes­ter­day slammed the state and po­lice as he award­ed near­ly $300,000 in dam­ages in a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case in which a man was charged with four break­ing and en­ter­ing charges, de­spite be­ing in po­lice and prison cus­tody at the time of the al­leged crimes.

De­scrib­ing this sit­u­a­tion as un­ac­cept­able, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad crit­i­cised the po­lice for en­gag­ing in poor polic­ing and the state for de­fend­ing the “in­de­fen­si­ble,” as he award­ed gen­er­al dam­ages and ex­em­plary dam­ages, while re­new­ing his call for po­lice of­fi­cers who flout the law to pay dam­ages from their own pock­ets.

The judge said, “If, as this mat­ter has shown, cit­i­zens in this coun­try are sub­ject­ed to this type of be­hav­iour both by the po­lice and then by the State when they come be­fore the court on ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion claims, then we are re­al­ly in a sor­ry state of af­fairs.”

The four mat­ters against Ricky Tay­lor were dis­missed in 2017 be­cause he died. His moth­er, Fran­ci­ca Tay­lor, sub­se­quent­ly filed a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion claim against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in 2023.

At the tri­al yes­ter­day be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, his moth­er and sis­ter, as well as two po­lice of­fi­cers—Ag ASP Ram­lo­gan and Sgt Nanan—gave ev­i­dence.

Tay­lor was ar­rest­ed by the po­lice on April 25, 2014, and tak­en by dif­fer­ent of­fi­cers to var­i­ous po­lice sta­tions in con­nec­tion with a se­ries of of­fences. He re­mained in po­lice cus­tody un­til he ap­peared be­fore a mag­is­trate on May 7, 2014.

How­ev­er, the charge al­leged that he broke in­to a dwelling house on April 30, 2014, but at that time, he would still have been in po­lice cus­tody.

Tay­lor was sub­se­quent­ly de­tained at Gold­en Grove with­out bail. Be­fore he was grant­ed his own bail and re­leased in Au­gust 2014, he was slapped with three sim­i­lar charges, al­leged­ly com­mit­ted on June 3, 12 and 21. Again, at that time, he would have been de­tained at Gold­en Grove with­out bail.

In his rul­ing, the judge said, “The al­le­ga­tions against this de­ceased were that lit­er­al­ly he would have been in two places at the same time while in po­lice cus­tody. First in a sta­tion and then sec­ond­ly on re­mand, jump­ing in and out of state cus­tody and com­mit­ting of­fences against mem­bers of the pub­lic. It de­fies log­ic and rea­son, and these charges ought nev­er to have been prof­fered as against this de­ceased ac­cused.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed Nanan’s ev­i­dence that he con­duct­ed an in­ter­view with Tay­lor on May 6, 2014, and he made oral ad­mis­sions to the April 30 crime.

The judge said there were sta­tion di­ary ex­tracts which stat­ed that Tay­lor was tak­en by oth­er of­fi­cers to var­i­ous sta­tions in con­nec­tion with oth­er of­fences at the time the in­ter­view was sup­pos­ed­ly con­duct­ed by Nanan.

He said, “The rights of cit­i­zens must be pro­tect­ed by ju­di­cial sys­tem and by the com­plainants who have the au­thor­i­ty in law not on­ly to prof­fer the charge but to take con­duct of the pros­e­cu­tion as the com­plainant and be frank and forth­right with the court, if in fact the charge have been pre­ferred in cir­cum­stances where it ought not to have been prof­fered.”

The judge al­so had “grave dif­fi­cul­ty un­der­stand­ing” why the state de­fend­ed the in­de­fen­si­ble.

He said the state ought to have ad­mit­ted that the April 30 charge was “the re­sult of ex­treme­ly poor and un­pro­fes­sion­al polic­ing,” and in re­la­tion to the oth­er charges, Tay­lor would have been on re­mand, ap­pear­ing be­fore the court.

The judge award­ed gen­er­al dam­ages in the sum of $250,000 with in­ter­est at a rate of 2.5 per cent from the date of ser­vice, Sep­tem­ber 18, 2023, un­til the date of judg­ment.

Find­ing the con­duct of the po­lice of­fi­cers “egre­gious,” he or­dered ex­em­plary dam­ages in the sum of $30,000 and re­newed his call for the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act to be amend­ed so that er­rant of­fi­cers pay these sums from their pock­ets, in­stead of tax­pay­ers.

The state al­so has to pay costs.

Tay­lor’s moth­er was rep­re­sent­ed by Joseph Sookhoo.