Tobago House of Assembly (THA) deputy Chief Secretary Dr Faith Brebnor has been successful in her lawsuit against the State over a police search warrant obtained as part of an alleged fraud probe into her and other THA members.
Justice Frank Seepersad ruled in Brebnor’s favour on April 9. The judge presided over Brebnor’s judicial review claim against Erla Harewood-Christopher, as Police Commissioner at the time and magistracy registrar Jameel Watch, who issued the warrant.
Although dismissing the case against the commissioner, Seepersad said the registrar’s decision to issue the warrant was flawed, defective and not based on reasonable ground that it could have yielded evidence against Brebnor.
“Given that the claimant was at the material time an elected official, the second defendant simply had no information before him which could have reasonably led him to form the belief that the execution of the search warrant could have yielded material evidence or relevant information which was capable of establishing that she was hired by the THA with the use of State funds as part of a propaganda machinery or that she, in the capacity as a THA employee, was likely involved in a conspiracy to defraud the State,” the judge said.
Brebnor filed a judicial review claim in January 2024, challenging the validity of the warrant obtained by WPC Weaver-Ali
>
According to her lawsuit, on July 17, 2023, a warrant was served on her at her home at 5.35 am. The application said the warrant contained an allegation that she was suspected of committing a conspiracy to defraud the state.
The application further said the conspiracy disclosed by the warrant – referred to as the Windward warrant – allegedly disclosed that the assembly had hired Brebnor from November 2021 to the present and paid her state funds "for the sole purpose of carrying on an alleged propaganda machinery.”
Her lawsuit asked for the warrant to be quashed, which the judge granted.
Brebnor contended the Windward warrant was one of multiple warrants issued against members of the THA and people connected to the assembly as part of an investigation which was “unavoidably coloured in politics.”
Her lawsuit also said the warrants were raised at a special plenary session on July 19, 2023, when THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine addressed the audio recording and the police searches and displayed some of the warrants and a production order that sought employment, accounting and internal documents from the chief administrator.
Augustine, whose home was also searched, also addressed a separate audio-visual recording of so-called whistleblower Akil Abdullah confessing to being coerced to accuse the central government of orchestrating a plot to undermine the current administration in Tobago.
In the recordings, Abdullah initially claimed to have been offered $270,000 in a meeting with government officials to “destroy” Augustine and other THA officials.
In an about-turn, Abdullah allegedly said the entire plot was a farce less than a month later.
In August 2023, Education Secretary Zorisha Hackett and THA employee Kevon Mckenna were charged by the police White Collar Crime Unit for allegedly defying an order of the court by failing to disclose pertinent information on the controversial tape.
>
The Integrity Commission also launched a probe after an anonymous complaint was lodged with the commission on June 3 under Section 32 of the Integrity in Public Life Act.
Brebnor represented by Christlyn Moore, Joshua Hamlet and Adanna Joseph-Wallace.
Senior Counsel Russell Martineau, Dominique Martineau, Lianne Thomas, and Murvani Ojah-Maharaj represent the commissioner. Michael Quamina, SC, and Chelvi Ramkissoon represent the JP.
