AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A truck dri­ver who was ar­rest­ed in 2013 and charged with lar­ce­ny, has been award­ed just over $215,000 for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

The State was or­dered to pay Isaac Bai­ley $215,553.38, af­ter a Mas­ter of the High Court de­liv­ered the as­sess­ment of dam­ages on Oc­to­ber 3.

Jus­tice Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well grant­ed judg­ment in the mat­ter on Au­gust 13, 2021.

Bai­ley was ar­rest­ed and charged with lar­ce­ny, con­trary to Sec­tion 4 of the Lar­ce­ny Act, on Au­gust 19, 2013. He was de­prived of his lib­er­ty for sev­en days—of which the first five days were spent in the hold­ing cell of the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion. He de­scribed the cell as “hav­ing a hor­ri­ble scent of urine and fae­ces.”

Af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore the mag­is­trate, he was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody at the To­ba­go Prison for a fur­ther two days.

The pros­e­cu­tion last­ed a lit­tle over two years and on Oc­to­ber 14, 2015, Bai­ley was found not guilty.

He ar­gued that as a re­sult of the in­ci­dent, he lost his job where he had been em­ployed for al­most sev­en years and had earned $300 per day.

As part of his sup­port­ing ev­i­dence, Bai­ley pro­vid­ed a let­ter from the com­pa­ny which con­firmed his dai­ly wage, as well as the fact that he had been ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect to avoid dam­age to the com­pa­ny’s rep­u­ta­tion.

Bai­ley said his in­abil­i­ty to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly and preg­nant wife had left him feel­ing de­pressed.

With the pend­ing mat­ter hang­ing over his head, the for­mer labour­er said he faced dis­tress, em­bar­rass­ment and hu­mil­i­a­tion dai­ly from his neigh­bours, fam­i­ly, friends and co-work­ers, who shunned and avoid­ed him.

Hav­ing lost his faith in the po­lice ser­vice, Bai­ley sued the State for dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion, in­clud­ing ag­gra­vat­ed and/or ex­em­plary dam­ages.

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well ruled that Bai­ley was en­ti­tled to a loss of earn­ings for a rea­son­able pe­ri­od, with that pe­ri­od be­ing mea­sured against the time it might have tak­en for him to find al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment.

In the cir­cum­stances, he was award­ed a loss of earn­ings as a con­se­quen­tial loss for a rea­son­able pe­ri­od of three months.

As for the claims of de­pres­sion, the court ac­cept­ed Bai­ley’s ev­i­dence that he felt de­pressed, even in the ab­sence of med­ical ev­i­dence.

The court not­ed that his ev­i­dence was that he felt de­pressed and not that he had been di­ag­nosed with de­pres­sion/clin­i­cal de­pres­sion.

In hand­ing down her rul­ing, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well con­sid­ered the na­ture of the charges against Bai­ley, which it ac­knowl­edged were not mi­nor of­fences be­cause they led to him los­ing his job and suf­fer­ing men­tal dis­tress.

In look­ing at the year in which some of the awards were made and the need to take in­to ac­count the fall in the pur­chas­ing pow­er of the dol­lar, the court award­ed the sum of $160,000, which in­clud­ed an up­lift for ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion with in­ter­est at the rate of 2.5 per cent per an­num from the date of ser­vice of the claim to the date of judg­ment.

In ad­di­tion, spe­cial dam­ages in the sum of $17,164.20 with in­ter­est at 1.5 per cent per an­num from the date of in­ci­dent to the date of judg­ment; and costs on the pre­scribed scale in the sum of $38,389.18 were award­ed.

Bai­ley was rep­re­sent­ed by Ab­del Q Mo­hammed.