Sascha Wil­son

A vic­tim of a rob­bery is threat­en­ing to sue the State af­ter a de­tailed po­lice re­port of the in­ci­dent was “leaked” on so­cial me­dia.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al dat­ed No­vem­ber 29, at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram claimed his client’s life was put at risk, as his per­son­al in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing his name and ad­dress, was ex­posed.

They are de­mand­ing the State pay him $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Rati­ram said his client, a promi­nent busi­ness­man, has a Firearm User’s Li­cence and owns a Glock 43X 9mm pis­tol. He said at 4.04 pm on Oc­to­ber 3, his client was ex­it­ing a bak­ery when two men, one with a gun, ap­proached. They an­nounced a holdup. One of the men be­gan to search his client, caus­ing him to hand over the keys to his ve­hi­cle. One of the men then hand­ed the keys to the oth­er man, who en­tered the ve­hi­cle and at­tempt­ed to start it.

The first man searched his client again and his client re­moved $1,200 from his pants pock­et and threw it at the man, who took it.

Rati­ram said the busi­ness­man be­came fear­ful for his life, drew his firearm and fired sev­er­al shots in the di­rec­tion of the man, who re­turned fire. Both sus­pects es­caped.

Of­fi­cers from the Oropouche Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed and the busi­ness­man gave them his per­son­al in­for­ma­tion and de­tails of the in­ci­dent, in­clud­ing a de­scrip­tion of the sus­pects.  The po­lice seized his client’s firearm, along with two mag­a­zines con­tain­ing am­mu­ni­tion, and his FUL.

Rati­ram said on Oc­to­ber 6, 2024, the busi­ness own­er was alert­ed that a de­tailed po­lice re­port of the in­ci­dent was be­ing shared and cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia. 

“Need­less to say, this caused my client much emo­tion­al dis­tress, in par­tic­u­lar, since it in­clud­ed his name, ad­dress, the fact that he was a ‘busi­ness own­er’, the fact that he was the hold­er of a FUL and li­censed firearm, his ve­hi­cle num­ber, and the de­tailed de­scrip­tions he gave of the two men.

“My client be­came fear­ful that he could be eas­i­ly lo­cat­ed by the said, and oth­er, crim­i­nals, seek­ing to rob him of his prop­er­ty, in­clud­ing his li­censed firearm. He al­so be­came fear­ful that he could be tar­get­ed by the said men for shoot­ing at them and giv­ing their de­scrip­tions to the po­lice.”

Nev­er­the­less, Rati­ram said on Oc­to­ber 17,  af­ter much con­sid­er­a­tion, his client iden­ti­fied the men via iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades, and they were lat­er charged. 

“Since then, my client has been even more fear­ful, since he is wor­ried that the men or their agents shall re­tal­i­ate against him for iden­ti­fy­ing them and may wish to take steps to en­sure that he does not tes­ti­fy against them in court pro­ceed­ings.”

As a re­sult of the re­port be­ing shared pub­licly, the at­tor­ney said his client, his client’s fam­i­ly, and em­ploy­ees are liv­ing in con­stant fear, and al­ways “look­ing over their shoul­der.”   

When the re­port was giv­en to the po­lice, Rati­ram said his client be­lieved that it would be kept con­fi­den­tial and used by the po­lice on­ly for in­ves­tiga­tive pur­pos­es. Rati­ram claimed the State breached his client’s rights to se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son, pro­tec­tion of law, re­spect for his fam­i­ly life and equal­i­ty of treat­ment from the TTPS. 

“Such ac­tions on the part of the po­lice not on­ly en­dan­ger the lives of in­no­cent civil­ians but al­so serve to erode pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the Po­lice Ser­vice, with the re­sult that cit­i­zens would be re­luc­tant to re­port crimes, fear­ing that the po­lice shall put their pri­vate in­for­ma­tion in­to the pub­lic do­main, there­by jeop­ar­dis­ing their safe­ty.”

Rati­ram, who rep­re­sents the busi­ness­man to­geth­er with at­tor­ney Michael Rooplal, called on the State to pay dam­ages, in­clud­ing vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages, with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing the let­ter or face le­gal pro­ceed­ings.