State ordered to pay over $600,000 after wrongful police search

Derek Achong

The State has been or­dered to pay more than $600,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a moth­er and daugh­ter whose home was searched by po­lice us­ing a war­rant is­sued in the name of a man who no longer lived there.

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment on Tues­day, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held the law­suit brought by the rel­a­tives, whose iden­ti­ties were with­held due to per­son­al safe­ty con­cerns raised by their at­tor­neys.

The law­suit stemmed from a search of the women’s home which be­gan around 4.30 am on Ju­ly 20, 2023.

The women said they were awak­ened by loud bang­ing on their front door and at­tempt­ed to ex­it through the back door but were con­front­ed by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers.

They claimed they were dressed on­ly in their un­der­wear and were forced to get dressed in front of of­fi­cers while their home was searched.

Of­fi­cers even­tu­al­ly left af­ter find­ing noth­ing il­le­gal.

The women al­so claimed the of­fi­cers re­fused to show them the search war­rant pre­sent­ed on en­try. They said they on­ly re­ceived a copy af­ter their at­tor­neys, led by Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, sought dis­clo­sure un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act.

They lat­er learned the war­rant had been is­sued in the name of a man known to po­lice who had not lived at the prop­er­ty since 2019.

The claimants filed the law­suit seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for tres­pass, as­sault and the ma­li­cious pro­cure­ment of the war­rant.

In her rul­ing, Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams found the po­lice did not have rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ob­tain the war­rant, as the of­fi­cer who ap­plied for it was not called to give ev­i­dence.

She al­so not­ed that the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al pre­sent­ed no ev­i­dence of en­quiries or sur­veil­lance con­duct­ed to con­firm that the man still lived at the home be­fore the war­rant was ob­tained.

Based on the lack of ev­i­dence, the judge ruled that the war­rant had been ma­li­cious­ly pro­cured.

Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams award­ed the moth­er $150,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages and $42,612.79 in spe­cial dam­ages.

The spe­cial dam­ages cov­er the cost of re­pair­ing the door and oth­er items dam­aged dur­ing the search, as well as ex­pens­es re­lat­ed to treat­ment for post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, which she was di­ag­nosed with fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

The daugh­ter was award­ed $120,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages.

The judge al­so award­ed $100,000 in ex­em­plary and ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages to each claimant.

The State was fur­ther or­dered to pay $72,445.96 in le­gal costs.

The moth­er and daugh­ter were rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, Nicholas Per­sad and Is­abell Rahim.