Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A High Court judge has again ex­pressed his con­cern that er­rant po­lice of­fi­cers are not be­ing held ac­count­able for neg­li­gent be­hav­iour while tax­pay­ers con­tin­ue to pay thou­sands of dol­lars in lit­i­ga­tion.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad made the re­marks as he award­ed $80,000 in dam­ages plus in­ter­est and costs to sol­dier Jovon Pa­que­ra, af­ter rul­ing in his favour in a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion claim yes­ter­day.

The judge found that In­sp Ian Syl­van wrong­ly caused crim­i­nal charges to be laid against the sol­dier be­cause his (Syl­van’s) ego was bruised.

In his oral rul­ing, the judge said, “This type of be­hav­iour amounts to an abuse of au­thor­i­ty and this court finds that Mr Syl­van was com­plete­ly dis­hon­est with his ac­count that the com­plainant as­sault­ed him and the court is quite alarmed that an of­fi­cer with such a propen­si­ty for dis­hon­esty is ac­tu­al­ly now a mem­ber of the Spe­cial Branch ...”

Adding that this in­ci­dent re­in­forces the per­cep­tion that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is in cri­sis, the judge said ur­gent re­view and re­or­gan­i­sa­tion are re­quired.

How­ev­er, the judge said tax­pay­ers would again have to pay for the ac­tions of er­rant of­fi­cers.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it seems that the leg­isla­tive is quite con­tent with this sta­tus quo, as it has made no at­tempt, de­spite nu­mer­ous calls by this and oth­er courts, for po­lice of­fi­cers to be held to ac­count and to pay for their mis­steps from their own pock­ets.”

Dur­ing the tri­al yes­ter­day, Pe­quero and his wit­ness, for­mer sol­dier Kevin Williams, tes­ti­fied, while Syl­van was the lone wit­ness for the de­fen­dant.

Ev­i­dence was led that Pa­que­ra, his De­fence Force col­leagues and close friends were at a sport­ing event at the Bri­an Lara Sports Ground in San­ta Cruz on Au­gust 19, 2022. He was among oth­er per­sons who in­ter­vened in an al­ter­ca­tion be­tween a De­fence Force mem­ber and some­one who al­leged­ly broke in­to his ve­hi­cle.

Pa­que­ra said he in­quired from Syl­van, whom he did not know was a po­lice cor­po­ral, why the al­leged car thief was re­leased and Syl­van told him, “Yuh don’t wan­na go down that road.”

Pa­que­ra and Williams iden­ti­fied them­selves to Syl­van as T&T De­fence Force mem­bers and he (Syl­van) replied, “You know who I am?”

The claimant and Williams be­gan walk­ing away but Syl­van grabbed his col­league’s pants and they strug­gled. Williams’ pants was ripped. Williams tes­ti­fied in the Mag­is­trates’ Court, and yes­ter­day, that he had en­gaged in a strug­gle with Syl­van, dur­ing which he bent the of­fi­cer’s fin­ger, and es­caped.

Pa­que­ra claimed Syl­van told him, “Ah can’t get yuh part­ner so I go lock you up in­stead” and “You will see what hap­pens when a po­lice charges a sol­dier.”

Pa­que­ra was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the San­ta Cruz Po­lice Sta­tion, where he pro­fessed his in­no­cence to the sergeant in charge of the sta­tion, An­drew Stanis­claus. He was charged with re­sist­ing, ob­struct­ing and as­sault­ing Syl­van in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties. Six years lat­er, the charges were dis­missed by a mag­is­trate.

In his rul­ing, Seep­er­sad said he was im­pressed with the ev­i­dence of the claimant and his wit­ness, but he found Syl­van to be ar­gu­men­ta­tive, eva­sive and hasty. He said Syl­van was in­censed af­ter his al­ter­ca­tion with Williams and de­cid­ed that “the claimant had to pay the price.” Find­ing that Syl­van and Stanis­claus col­lud­ed to charge the claimant, he said, “The course adopt­ed demon­strates how ego and il­lu­sions of un­bri­dled pow­er of­ten af­fect the man­ner in which the po­lice con­ducts its af­fairs.”

He added that it’s al­ways amaz­ing how the po­lice use “the holy tri­fec­ta” of of­fences, of ob­scene lan­guage, re­sist­ing ar­rest and as­sault­ing an of­fi­cer, when their “egos are bruised or when they feel that have been per­son­al­ly ag­griev­ed.”

The judge was as­ton­ished that no at­tempts were made to in­ves­ti­gate Pa­que­ra’s claims that he was in­no­cent or to in­ter­view Williams, who could have been eas­i­ly found. He was al­so con­cerned that the de­fence did not call Stanis­claus as a wit­ness.

Pa­que­ra was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Phillip Wil­son.