DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $3 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for breach­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of a pair of sib­lings from Diego Mar­tin, who were re­mand­ed to adult prison fa­cil­i­ties af­ter be­ing charged with mur­der along with two adults.

In May 2021, the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil up­held the fi­nal ap­peal of Sasha and Bri­an Seep­er­sad and re­mit­ted the is­sue of com­pen­sa­tion to the lo­cal courts. 

The com­pen­sa­tion was as­sessed by High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed on Tues­day. 

In her judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed was high­ly crit­i­cal of the State’s fail­ure to prop­er­ly ac­com­mo­date them while they were mi­nors. 

Stat­ing that the court had to reg­is­ter its dis­gust for the State’s con­duct, Jus­tice Mo­hammed said, “The De­fen­dant must be pun­ished for such ap­palling con­duct and the Court must send a strong mes­sage in or­der to de­ter the De­fen­dants, their ser­vants and/or agents from re­peat­ing the con­duct as was demon­strat­ed in this ac­tion.”

“In my view, it is shock­ing that this ap­palling con­duct was com­mit­ted by the State which has a le­gal oblig­a­tion to pro­tect all mi­nors,” she added. 

In Jan­u­ary 2014, the sib­lings, a 16-year-old boy, and 18-year-old Ste­fan Fred­er­ick were charged with rob­bing and mur­der­ing 54-year-old Dul­raj Boy­an De­o­dath. 

De­o­dath was blud­geoned to death at his Sea Trace, Bagatelle, home, and was robbed of a $150,000 truck, a leaf blow­er, jew­ellery and cash. 

At the time, Sasha was 16 and her broth­er was 12 years old. 

They were de­tained at the Arou­ca Women’s Prison and the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) for six­teen months be­fore Bri­an was trans­ferred to the St Michael’s School for Boys in Diego Mar­tin.

His sis­ter was briefly de­tained at the St Jude’s Home for Girls.  

The sib­lings, through their lawyers led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, filed a law­suit al­leg­ing that the Chil­dren’s Act and oth­er leg­is­la­tion re­lat­ed to chil­dren’s rights re­quired that mi­nors fac­ing tri­al for crim­i­nal of­fences be housed in com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences de­signed to cater specif­i­cal­ly to their needs.

Af­ter their case was ini­tial­ly up­held by Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram, Bri­an was trans­ferred to a com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dence in Port-of-Spain that was es­tab­lished by the State. 

He was even­tu­al­ly re­turned to YTC when he turned 16 in 2017. 

In 2018, the Court of Ap­peal con­sid­ered their case and up­held Jus­tice Kokaram’s rul­ing that their de­ten­tion con­tra­vened the Chil­dren’s Act. 

How­ev­er, the Ap­peal Court over­ruled his find­ings on their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights breach­es and the $450,000 com­pen­sa­tion he or­dered. 

In 2019, Bri­an was among a group of five in­mates at the YTC, who man­aged to es­cape.

Sev­er­al months lat­er, he was killed in an al­leged shoot-out with po­lice at a house in Mor­vant.

The sib­lings’ moth­er was per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue the case on his be­half and will now col­lect the com­pen­sa­tion award­ed to him, this week, based on the Privy Coun­cil re­ver­sal of the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion on dam­ages. 

In as­sess­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the sib­lings, Jus­tice Mo­hammed de­cid­ed on $850,000 in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages for Bri­an and $730,000 for his sis­ter. 

Her as­sess­ment was main­ly based on the sib­lings’ lengthy de­ten­tion in “op­pres­sive and ap­palling” con­di­tions at prison fa­cil­i­ties with adults. 

She al­so not­ed that the sib­lings were ex­posed to sex­u­al as­sault by fel­low in­mates. 

“The ef­fect of the De­fen­dant’s fail­ure meant that Bri­an was ex­posed to sex­u­al abuse dur­ing his de­ten­tion which vi­o­lat­ed his in­no­cence as a mi­nor and Sasha’s in­no­cence was al­so vi­o­lat­ed as she was con­stant­ly be­ing threat­ened with sex­u­al abuse by adult in­mates,” she said. 

“Bri­an’s bod­i­ly in­tegri­ty was com­pro­mised and his in­no­cence per­vert­ed by be­ing forced to show­er naked in front of adults de­spite re­quests for the prison of­fi­cers to move,” she added.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed al­so not­ed that Sasha was beat­en by a group of prison of­fi­cers at the Women’s Prison and filed a sep­a­rate case, which is still pend­ing. 

She al­so not­ed that Sasha was not al­lowed to prac­tice her re­li­gious be­lief as a Mus­lim. 

“Sasha was deal­ing with a very chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment in her long de­ten­tion and the fail­ure to make arrange­ments for Sasha to prac­tice her re­li­gious be­liefs meant that she did not even have spir­i­tu­al guid­ance and hope,” she said. 

She ruled that Bri­an and Sasha were en­ti­tled to $1 mil­lion and $500,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages, re­spec­tive­ly, to high­light the egre­gious con­duct of the State. 

“In this re­gard, a sig­nif­i­cant award for vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages is nec­es­sary in or­der to reg­is­ter the Court’s dis­ap­proval for the De­fen­dant’s con­duct and to act as a de­ter­rence and to pun­ish the De­fen­dant,” she said. 

She al­so crit­i­cised the State for trans­fer­ring the sib­lings to St Michael’s and St Jude’s de­spite know­ing that both fa­cil­i­ties did not meet the stan­dards of a com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dence based on a re­port pub­lished in 2015. 

“Yet the De­fen­dants know­ing­ly in­ten­tion­al­ly and de­lib­er­ate­ly chose to dis­re­gard the find­ings of the 2015 re­port and did noth­ing to ad­dress the con­di­tions Bri­an and Sasha were kept in at those fa­cil­i­ties,” she said. 

As part of her judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered the State to pay the sib­lings’ le­gal costs for the case. 

The sib­lings were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Ganesh Sa­roop, and Natasha Bis­ram. 

Am­ri­ta Ram­sook rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.