Man wins $35,000 after 8 days without a shower in custody

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A High Court Judge has award­ed a man $35,000 in com­pen­sa­tion, af­ter he was de­nied a show­er for over a week while be­ing de­tained for firearm pos­ses­sion.

Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion last week as he par­tial­ly up­held a case brought by Patrick Trum­pet over his ar­rest and de­ten­tion in 2017.

While Jus­tice Ram­per­sad found that he had not been ma­li­cious­ly pros­e­cut­ed and false­ly im­pris­oned as po­lice of­fi­cers had rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest him and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to de­tain him for a pro­tract­ed pe­ri­od, he found that Trum­pet was still en­ti­tled to be com­pen­sat­ed for the con­di­tions of his de­ten­tion.

“The court finds on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties that the de­fen­dant has pro­duced co­gent rea­sons that are suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the claimant’s de­ten­tion. That does not ex­cuse the op­pres­sive na­ture of his de­ten­tion how­ev­er,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, on De­cem­ber 5, 2017, Trum­pet was a pas­sen­ger in a car which was stopped by po­lice of­fi­cers along La Puer­ta Av­enue in Diego Mar­tin.

A loaded pis­tol in the glove com­part­ment was found.

Trum­pet was held in an un­san­i­tary cell for eight days be­fore he and the dri­ver of the car were charged with firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion.

He was grant­ed bail and made sev­er­al court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charge against him was dis­con­tin­ued by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In de­fence of the law­suit, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al claimed that the of­fi­cers were re­spond­ing to a re­port of a shoot­ing in Port-of-Spain when they in­ter­cept­ed the car Trum­pet was trav­el­ling in.

It claimed that the of­fi­cers’ in­ves­ti­ga­tion was de­layed af­ter the vic­tim of the shoot­ing died and homi­cide de­tec­tives had to in­ter­ro­gate Trum­pet and the dri­ver, who was even­tu­al­ly sole­ly charged for mur­der.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad agreed with the ex­pla­na­tion for the de­lay.

Stat­ing that the homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­pli­cat­ed Trum­pet’s de­ten­tion, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said: “If there had been no homi­cide, then eight days would have been ex­ces­sive for the de­ten­tion of the claimant when charges could have been laid right away in re­la­tion to the pos­ses­sion of the firearm and am­mu­ni­tion.

“Al­though his de­ten­tion was jus­ti­fied, that does not mean he can be de­tained in the man­ner he was,” he added.

In de­cid­ing on $20,000 in dam­ages, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said that no per­son should be put through such tor­ture treat­ment.

“Noth­ing was phys­i­cal­ly done to him, but there was no rea­son giv­en for him not be­ing al­lowed to clean him­self,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

He al­so or­dered $15,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to help pre­vent such fu­ture con­duct.

“The court is of the re­spect­ful view that this breach of the du­ty of care in re­spect of the claimant ought to be dep­re­cat­ed along with a show of the court’s dis­plea­sure,” he said.

The State was or­dered to pay $10,000 in le­gal costs for the case de­spite Trum­pet on­ly earn­ing a par­tial vic­to­ry.

Trum­pet was rep­re­sent­ed by Thalia Fran­cis-Brooks and Ul­ric Sker­ritt.

Rachel Theophilus and Am­ri­ta Ram­sook rep­re­sent­ed the AG’s Of­fice.