Derek Achong

A lit­tle over six years af­ter be­ing freed of kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, nine Diego Mar­tin men are each set to re­ceive $2.1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion, while the state will have to pay out some $20 mil­lion over­all for the failed case.

High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, and An­to­nio Charles yes­ter­day, as she de­liv­ered her de­ci­sion in their ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case.

The group filed the law­suit al­most four years af­ter they were freed of the charges in late May 2016.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al en­tered an ap­pear­ance in the case but failed to de­fend it, lead­ing the group’s le­gal team, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, to suc­cess­ful­ly ob­tain a de­fault judge­ment against it in Jan­u­ary 2021.

“The present mat­ter, there­fore, was a sub­stan­tial one that the de­fen­dant chose nei­ther to de­fend nor to call any ev­i­dence, save to ap­pear at the as­sess­ment to be heard on quan­tum,” Mas­ter Alexan­der said.

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 them spend­ing al­most a decade on re­mand be­fore be­ing freed.

“De­spite the fact that they were all di­ag­nosed with a sim­i­lar med­ical con­di­tion, there were slight dif­fer­ences in how the con­di­tion man­i­fest­ed in and af­fect­ed each claimant. Some had more ad­verse and de­bil­i­tat­ing re­ac­tions than oth­ers,” Mas­ter Alexan­der said.

She not­ed that Ghent-Gar­cia sug­gest­ed that each of the men would have to un­der­go treat­ment, at a cost of $165,000 each, to ad­dress their psy­cho­log­i­cal is­sues.

Mas­ter Alexan­der al­so re­ject­ed sub­mis­sions from the AG’s Of­fice that there was col­lu­sion and col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Ghent-Gar­cia and the men be­cause of the sim­i­lar­i­ty of di­ag­no­sis.

“In fact, this court was stunned by the at­tack on the ex­pert, made via sub­mis­sions, in cir­cum­stances where coun­sel had failed to dis­cred­it the wit­ness dur­ing the tri­al,” she said.

“In the view of the court, if each claimant suf­fered the same ex­pe­ri­ences, al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and gave ev­i­dence to that ef­fect, this is not demon­stra­tive of col­lu­sion but rather of a fac­tu­al sim­i­lar­i­ty of cir­cum­stances en­ti­tling each of com­pen­sa­tion,” she added.

Mas­ter Alexan­der al­so strong­ly con­sid­ered the “hor­ren­dous” prison con­di­tions they had to en­dure be­fore their even­tu­al re­lease.

“In fact, the wit­ness state­ments might have sim­i­lar con­tents, based on their sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, but these were ex­pressed dif­fer­ent­ly, with some claimants fo­cus­ing on the ex­treme heat, foul smells and cramped, un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and how those af­fect­ed their si­nus­es and oth­er health is­sues,” she said.

Mas­ter Alexan­der al­so con­sid­ered the im­pact of the failed pros­e­cu­tion on the men’s rep­u­ta­tions.

Stat­ing that the case drew loud pub­lic out­cry, Mas­ter Alexan­der not­ed that the men were teenagers or in their ear­ly 20s when they were charged.

“As they were marched to court, on the pub­lic streets, these claimants, then ac­cused mur­der­ers, were greet­ed with in­sults, jeers, racial slurs and ob­scene lan­guage. They were made in­to pub­lic spec­ta­cles to quell pub­lic out­cry against the mur­der and kid­nap­ping of the vic­tim,” she said, as she not­ed they al­so suf­fered in­juries to their feel­ings.

In or­der­ing $2 mil­lion each in gen­er­al dam­ages, Mas­ter Alexan­der ap­plied an up­lift for ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages.

“The ev­i­dence of hu­mil­i­a­tion, loss of dig­ni­ty, and shame could not be con­test­ed and the court ac­cept­ed that the pro­tract­ed ex­po­sure to such mis­treat­ment would have af­fect­ed these claimants men­tal­ly,” she said.

Mas­ter Alexan­der al­so or­dered $100,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to mark the court’s dis­ap­proval and con­dem­na­tion of the op­pres­sive, ar­bi­trary and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al ac­tions of the prison of­fi­cers who su­per­vised the group while they were on re­mand.

The men claimed that they were forced to drink juice that was “sweet­ened” with salt, with one claim­ing to have suf­fered kid­ney mal­func­tion as a re­sult. They al­so claimed they suf­fered men­tal tor­ture, as they were forced to lis­ten in to younger in­mates be­ing raped by vet­er­an res­i­dents.

“Such thug­gish and out­ra­geous treat­ment met­ed out to our cit­i­zens who are pulled out of so­ci­ety, im­pris­oned, and pros­e­cut­ed for in­or­di­nate­ly lengthy pe­ri­ods, are chill­ing and must not be al­lowed to re­oc­cur,” Mas­ter Alexan­der said.

As part of her de­ci­sion in the case, Mas­ter Alexan­der or­dered the State to pay in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion at a rate of two and a half per cent per an­num from when the case was filed in 2020.

She al­so or­dered the State to pay the $68,000 for Ghent-Gar­cia’s ex­pert ev­i­dence and the $200,000 in le­gal fees for the case.

The group was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Ganesh Sa­roop and Natasha Bis­ram.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Karen Reid-Bal­lan­tyne and Am­ri­ta Ram­sook.

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 and raised is­sues over a gun linked to the kid­nap­ping crime scene be­ing 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.