Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to two men, who were ac­cused of hav­ing sex in a car on so­cial me­dia af­ter they were ar­rest­ed for breach­ing a cur­few dur­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

On Thurs­day, High Court Judge Joan Charles or­dered $625,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for each of the men as she up­held a li­bel and ma­li­cious false­hood case brought against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the po­lice of­fi­cer who al­leged­ly took a pho­to­graph of them af­ter their ar­rest.

While the men and the of­fi­cer were iden­ti­fied in the court fil­ings, their names were with­held by this news­pa­per based on the na­ture of the case and the fact that it may be ap­pealed.

The case cen­tred around the duo’s ar­rest around 12.20 am on June 26, 2021.

The men were found seat­ed in a car at Ma­hogany Trace in Diego Mar­tin af­ter at­tend­ing a py­ja­ma par­ty at Sea Trace, Riv­er Es­tate, Diego Mar­tin.

The men were ar­rest­ed and charged with breach­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions re­lat­ed to the cur­few that was in place at the time.

They claimed that the of­fi­cer took a pic­ture of them with his per­son­al cell phone while they were de­tained in a hold­ing cell.

Af­ter they ap­peared in court and were re­leased, they learned that a pho­to­graph of them was post­ed on so­cial me­dia with a cap­tion al­leg­ing that they were caught hav­ing sex in the car.

The post was wide­ly shared and com­ment­ed on.

Through their lawyers, Pe­ter Tay­lor and Joseph Sookoo, the duo filed the case claim­ing that their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tions were tar­nished by the false al­le­ga­tion.

In de­fence of the case, State at­tor­neys claimed that they were law­ful­ly ar­rest­ed and the po­lice of­fi­cer took the pho­to­graph to send to a col­league to de­ter­mine if the men were want­ed for oth­er crimes.

They de­nied any wrong­do­ing as they al­leged that the of­fi­cer nev­er pub­lished the pho­to­graph with the defam­a­to­ry cap­tion as al­leged.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Charles found that on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties, the on­ly per­son who could have made the post was the of­fi­cer based on his ad­mis­sion over tak­ing it and the fact that on­ly he and his col­leagues had ac­cess to the area of the sta­tion where they were be­ing held.

In their claim for com­pen­sa­tion, the duo’s lawyers claimed that their clients, who are mar­ried and have chil­dren, were deeply em­bar­rassed as the post was seen by rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues and they were os­tracised as a re­sult.

They claimed that one of the men was at­tacked by his nephews while vis­it­ing his moth­er and was ac­cused of be­ing a ho­mo­sex­u­al.

They al­leged that the man’s son al­so ex­pressed a de­sire to com­mit sui­cide as he was bul­lied about his fa­ther at school. The oth­er man’s teenage son, who lived with his moth­er in the Unit­ed States, stopped talk­ing to him af­ter see­ing the post.

“The sec­ond named claimant’s son went from be­ing a spir­it­ed and vi­brant child to a reclu­sive, silent and moody child. He stu­dious­ly avoids his fa­ther,” they said.

“The sec­ond named claimant’s neigh­bours who he has known all his life could not bear to face him,” they added.

Jus­tice Charles fo­cused on the ef­fect on the men’s fam­i­ly lives in award­ing the sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion for them.

As part of her judg­ment, Jus­tice Charles or­dered that the State pay the duo’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

The men were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ne­han­da Samuel. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Tr­isha Ram­lo­gan and Lianne Thomas.