Woman wins $75,000 for unlawful detention

Derek Achong

A woman ar­rest­ed and de­tained dur­ing a bail fraud in­ves­ti­ga­tion has won $75,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad award­ed the dam­ages to Cheryl Ann Adams af­ter up­hold­ing her false im­pris­on­ment claim at the end of a brief tri­al at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

The ev­i­dence showed that po­lice ar­rest­ed Adams with a group of peo­ple at the Tu­na­puna Mag­is­trates’ Court on May 22, 2019.

Po­lice de­tained her for six days be­fore re­leas­ing her with­out charge.

Through her at­tor­ney, Lemuel Mur­phy, Adams filed the claim chal­leng­ing the ba­sis of her ar­rest and her pro­longed de­ten­tion.

While giv­ing ev­i­dence yes­ter­day, Adams said she felt em­bar­rassed be­cause neigh­bours saw po­lice search her home af­ter her ar­rest.

When asked why she did not call any of them to give ev­i­dence, she said she did not be­lieve their as­sis­tance was nec­es­sary but main­tained they would have been will­ing to tes­ti­fy.

Re­tired in­spec­tor Ramd­hani Dipc­hand and Cpl Khalil Ho­sein gave ev­i­dence for the de­fence and said of­fi­cers re­leased Adams once they com­plet­ed their in­ves­ti­ga­tion and con­sult­ed the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Dipc­hand said he launched the in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter over­hear­ing Adams and oth­ers at the court dis­cussing fa­cil­i­tat­ing bail for a man.

He said he lat­er spoke with court of­fi­cials, who said a mem­ber of the group had sub­mit­ted bail doc­u­ments that turned out to be fraud­u­lent.

Dipc­hand said of­fi­cers de­tained Adams be­cause the man who sub­mit­ted the doc­u­ments claimed he had re­ceived them from her.

He ac­cept­ed that the man, who po­lice al­so ar­rest­ed and lat­er charged, sub­se­quent­ly said Adams had not giv­en him the doc­u­ments.

In his rul­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said Adams’ ar­rest and ini­tial de­ten­tion were jus­ti­fied.

“This court is of the firm view that there was rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ef­fect the ar­rest of the claimant,” he said.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ques­tioned the length of time po­lice took to com­plete the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Po­lice must jus­ti­fy de­ten­tion on a minute by minute ba­sis. The court is not sat­is­fied there was a prop­er ba­sis for jus­ti­fy­ing her de­ten­tion over the week­end,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

“She posed no sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic threat that would have ne­ces­si­tat­ed her de­ten­tion past the 24th,” he added.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the State to pay Adams $75,000 in com­pen­sa­tion and to cov­er her le­gal costs.

He al­so urged of­fi­cers to avoid de­lay­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, say­ing such con­duct in­fringes cit­i­zens’ right to lib­er­ty.

“The po­lice need to be mind­ful that their oblig­a­tions do not pause over week­end pe­ri­ods. Once per­sons are ar­rest­ed they must en­sure that there is due jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for con­tin­ued de­ten­tion,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

Chelvi Ramkissoon, Aryan­ta Williams and Chan­tal Cun­ning­ham rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.