State to pay out over $1M after online post claims men ‘were having sex in car’

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

The State has been or­dered to pay more than $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to two men who were false­ly ac­cused on so­cial me­dia of hav­ing sex in a car af­ter their ar­rest for breach­ing a Covid-19 cur­few.

On Thurs­day, High Court Judge Joan Charles award­ed $625,000 to each man as she up­held their li­bel and ma­li­cious false­hood claim against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and a po­lice of­fi­cer who took a pho­to­graph of them af­ter their ar­rest.

While the men and the of­fi­cer were iden­ti­fied in court fil­ings, their names will be with­held due to the na­ture of the case and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an ap­peal.

The case cen­tres on their ar­rest at 12.20 am on June 26, 2021.

Po­lice found the men sit­ting in a car at Ma­hogany Trace, Diego Mar­tin, af­ter they at­tend­ed a pa­ja­ma par­ty at Sea Trace, Riv­er Es­tate. Of­fi­cers charged them with breach­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions linked to the cur­few in place at the time.

The men said the of­fi­cer took a pho­to­graph of them us­ing his per­son­al cell phone while they were in a hold­ing cell.

Af­ter they ap­peared in court and were re­leased, they learnt that the pho­to­graph had been post­ed on so­cial me­dia with a cap­tion al­leg­ing they were caught hav­ing sex in the car. The post was wide­ly shared and com­ment­ed on.

Through their at­tor­neys Pe­ter Tay­lor and Joseph Sookoo, the men claimed the al­le­ga­tion dam­aged their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tions.

In re­sponse, State at­tor­neys said the men were law­ful­ly ar­rest­ed and that the of­fi­cer took the pho­to­graph to send to a col­league to de­ter­mine if they were want­ed for oth­er crimes. They de­nied that the of­fi­cer pub­lished the im­age with the defam­a­to­ry cap­tion.

In her rul­ing, Jus­tice Charles found that, on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties, the of­fi­cer was re­spon­si­ble for the post, based on his ad­mis­sion that he took the pho­to­graph and that on­ly he and his col­leagues had ac­cess to the hold­ing area.

The men’s at­tor­neys said both claimants, who are mar­ried with chil­dren, were deeply em­bar­rassed as rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues saw the post and os­tracised them.

They said one man was at­tacked by his nephews and ac­cused of be­ing a ho­mo­sex­u­al, while his son ex­pressed a de­sire to com­mit sui­cide af­ter be­ing bul­lied at school.

They said the oth­er man’s teenage son, who lives in the Unit­ed States, stopped speak­ing with him af­ter see­ing the post.

"The Sec­ond Named Claimant's son went from be­ing a spir­it­ed and vi­brant child to a reclu­sive, silent and moody child. He stu­dious­ly avoids his fa­ther," they said.

"The Sec­ond Named Claimant's neigh­bours who he has known all his life could not bear to face him," they added.

Jus­tice Charles al­so or­dered the State to pay the men’s le­gal costs.