Killer to get $.2m for prison beating

A CONVICTED killer who was beaten by prison guards at the remand prison in Arouca in 2006,will receive $230,000 in compensation from the State.

Garvin “Beam” Sookram sued the State for assault and battery and damages were ordered to be assessed by a Master of the High Court.

In a decision delivered on Friday, Master Sherlanne Pierre ordered the State to pay Sookram general damages, including an uplift for aggravated damages of $180,000 and exemplary damages of $50,000.

She also ordered the State to pay interest at a rate of five per cent as well as the costs of the assessment.

In his claim, Sookram said on November 11, 2006, he was at the remand section of the Golden Grove prison when members of the prison’s emergency response unit and the police’s guard and emergency branch and the now defunct Special Anti-Crime Unit (SAUTT) came in, wearing masks.

He said a few minutes before, his cell and other cells were opened and some of the inmates went into the corridor. The officers began beating them and firing shots.

Sookram said he ran back into his cell, but officers threw a smoke bomb inside.

He said was asked to identify himself, and was then taken out and beaten.

“I was slapped, cuffed, kicked, stamped on and hit numerous times with gun butts and batons. The pain I experienced from this was nearly unbearable,” he said.

Sookram said he pleaded for the beatings to stop, but was threatened.

He was then made to lie on the ground, kicked in the face and his face stepped on by one of the officers, who stood on it for a few seconds.

“I did not see this kick coming and experienced the full blow from it,” he said. “I thought the officers were trying to kill me.”

Sookram said he was ordered back into his cell, beaten again, and when he “thought it was all over,” ordered out again with threats that he would be further harmed otherwise.

“I struggled to get up and go outside with all the pain I was in. As I stumbled out of my cell, there were a few officers there and again they beat me,” he said.

He said he was surprised, since he had done nothing wrong.

Sookram said he was taken to a section of the prison known as “Guantanamo Bay” and again beaten, this time with batons. His right hand was broken. After being beaten for a short while, he was thrown into a cell for days without being taken for medical treatment.

A few days later, he was taken to the hospital, but since there was no security there he was taken back to Guantanamo Bay Three weeks later, Sookram was taken to hospital where his hand was put in a cast, but he said by then it healed in a deformed manner. He said his deformed hand will always remind him of the incident.

Sookram’s case was one of 57 matters filed on behalf of the prisoners beaten that day. Their cases were heard collectively and damages were ordered to be assessed. The cases were heard by Justice Judith Jones, who held that over 50 inmates suffered injury of one type or another on that date.

She said she was satisfied the attacks were unjustified and unreasonable and that the men were entitled to compensation for assault and battery.

Jones appealed to the authorities to take a closer look at the conditions endured by prisoners and prisons officers and called for a revision of the prison rules.

Sookram was represented by attorney Gerald Ramdeen.

In June 2004, Sookram was acquitted of a 2000 murder. A couple of months later he was arrested for the July 2004 murder of two men at Sawmill Avenue, Barataria.

He was alleged to be a gang leader and in 2009 he was convicted on the second murder indictment.

He appealed his conviction but it was dismissed and his convictions affirmed in 2011.