SASCHA WIL­SON

The state now has to pay dam­ages to a sus­pend­ed po­lice­man af­ter he was false­ly im­pris­oned for four days fol­low­ing his ar­rest last year. 

While In­spec­tor Ra­jesh Gokool was sub­se­quent­ly charged with con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled that his de­ten­tion for four of the sev­en days he was in cus­tody was un­law­ful. 

Gokool, through his at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram, sued the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for wrong­ful ar­rest and false im­pris­on­ment last Au­gust. 

In the court doc­u­ments, Gokool said around 4 am on March 2nd, 2020, he and his fam­i­ly were awok­en when a par­ty of of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing Ag Cpl Mar­cano of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), came to his La Ro­maine home.  Mar­cano in­formed Gokool he was in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of a DVR that had been seized from the premis­es of Mustapha Khan. The of­fi­cer fur­ther stat­ed that it was al­leged that Gokool had or­dered the DVD's re­moval with in­tent to con­ceal ev­i­dence and that he lat­er sub­mit­ted a wrong DVR to the Cy­ber Crime Unit.

Gokool claimed he was ar­rest­ed in front of his fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing his four-year-old daugh­ter, and his neigh­bours. Gokool, ac­cord­ing to the court doc­u­ments, was tak­en to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion and placed in a cell even though he was charged with any­thing. He start­ed hav­ing breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ty and com­plained to of­fi­cers on du­ty.  Fol­low­ing this, he was tak­en to the Pin­to Po­lice Post, where he was placed in a room.  The fol­low­ing day around 9:30 am, Mar­cano and Cpl Bisses­sar from the PSB ar­rived at the post and in­ter­viewed Gokool un­til 12 pm.  Around 8 am on March 4, 2020, Cpl Bisses­sar told him that he was be­ing fur­ther de­tained. Gokool asked to be re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions, but he re­fused and left.

On March 5, 2020, Gokool was in­formed that he would be placed on an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade.    Around 5:30 am on March 6, 2020, Gokool was tak­en to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion and placed in an en­closed room.  Lat­er that morn­ing, he asked an of­fi­cer about the arrange­ments for his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade, and he was told that it would take place at 5 pm.  At 6.30 pm, Ag In­spec­tor Joseph in­formed Gokool that he had been ap­point­ed as the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade of­fi­cer, but the pa­rade did not take place. The next day, March 7, Gokool was tak­en to Trinci­ty Mall, where a Group Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was done in the food court.  Gokool was tak­en back to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion and moved to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion that night. 

Around 3:00 pm on March 9, Gokool be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing short­ness of breath, numb­ness in his legs and chest pains. He was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal via am­bu­lance. He was ex­am­ined by a doc­tor who found that he was suf­fer­ing from anx­i­ety. Gokool was tak­en back to the sta­tion and lat­er that night his wife ap­plied for a Writ of Habeas Cor­pus.  

Fol­low­ing his ap­pear­ance be­fore Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed at the Hall of Jus­tice on March 9, 2020, the judge or­dered that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­lease him by 7 pm if he was not charged.  Around 6:20 pm, he was re­leased on the ad­vice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Gokool claimed he suf­fered ex­treme trau­ma, dis­tress, hu­mil­i­a­tion and em­bar­rass­ment due to his ar­rest and de­ten­tion. Dur­ing his time in cus­tody, he claimed he suf­fered a loss of ap­petite, had great dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing, and of­ten ex­pe­ri­enced night­mares. 

Gokool was re-ar­rest­ed and charged with con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice in June 2020 and that mat­ter is still pend­ing. 

Gokool's at­tor­ney made an ap­pli­ca­tion to strike out the state's de­fence on the ba­sis that it dis­closed no grounds for de­fend­ing the claim, and in par­tic­u­lar, it did not jus­ti­fy the length of Gokool's de­ten­tion.   Rati­ram al­so ar­gued that the ID pa­rade was not nec­es­sary but sub­mit­ted that if the court found the pa­rade was nec­es­sary, the po­lice should have com­plet­ed in­ter­view­ing Gokool and the ID pa­rade held, no lat­er than the morn­ing of March 4.  

In his rul­ing, the judge agreed with Rati­ram's sub­mis­sion that the de­fence did not jus­ti­fy the length of Gokool's de­ten­tion, but he found that the ID pa­rade was nec­es­sary.  How­ev­er, the judge ruled that the po­lice should have placed Gokool on the pa­rade no lat­er than the evening of March 5, adding that the de­lay in con­duct­ing the ID Pa­rade was un­rea­son­able.

Ram­per­sad ruled that Gokool's de­ten­tion from March 5 to March 9 was un­law­ful and or­dered that the De­fence in re­spect of that pe­ri­od be struck out. 

The mat­ter was ad­journed to Feb­ru­ary 18, 2022, for the as­sess­ment of dam­ages.

Rati­ram sub­se­quent­ly sought leave to with­draw the claim for wrong­ful ar­rest, and false im­pris­on­ment for the pe­ri­od March 2 to 4.30 pm on March 5th, 2020. 

The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Ebo Jones, and Ryan Grant.