$85,000 for Tobago port assault

A High Court judge has ordered the Port Authority to compensate a mother and her 13-year-old daughter a total of $85,000 for an assault by port officers at the Scarborough port terminal in 2014.

In his decision, delivered via e-mail in keeping with the Judiciary’s covid19 policy to suspend matters not deemed urgent, Justice Ricky Rahim said the allegations in the claim were startling.

Although he said Zakiya Ramsey refused to obey an instruction by the port police to leave the terminal because boarding time had closed, and became aggressive when the port officer manhandled her then seven-year-old daughter, Rahim said the conduct of the estate constables was “ so outrageous that something needs to be said that this behaviour is unacceptable.”

He said the constables – Nicholas Mc Kellar, Kellon Patrick, Kerni-Anne Edwards and Adolphus Nichols – were trained officers and Ramsey’s daughter posted no threat to them.

“The court must send a strong message that it disapproves of the manner in which the duties of the officers were discharged,” he said.

According to Ramsey’s case argued by attorneys Steven Mawer and Elena da Silva, on January 12, 2014, she and her children, her mother and a cousin-in-law attempted to board a ferry to Trinidad.

She was pregnant at the time, and three months later suffered a miscarriage. Ramsey testified at the trial, so too the port officers but her children were afraid to.

While admitting they arrived late, she tried to negotiate at the ticket counter to get on the boat.

She said Patrick aggressively told her to leave as boarding was closed. She told her then seven-year-old to use her phone to record the events, and Patrick shouted at the child, ordered her to stop filming and wrung her arm while wrestling the phone from her.

When she tried to take the phone from the officer, Ramsey said she was slapped in the face.

She claimed to be beaten about the body and her stomach. Ramsey also included an assault claim against the police, but this was dismissed by Rahim who found she was not assaulted there as she alleged.

In his decision, the judge said the version of the events given by the port officers, in particular Patrick, was not plausible.

He said it appeared that the “spark that lit the fire” was when he wrung the phone out of the child’s hands, twisting her forearm.

Rahim also said it was “unbelievable” his evidence that he did not lift a finger to control Ramsey or that he calmly walked her to the door.

“It is equally clear that ECs Patrick, Mac Kellar and WEC Edwards used much more force than was reasonable both to exclude the first claimant and also to repel the attack she had perpetrated on Patrick.

“In fact, it is equally clear that Patrick was the one who fired the first slap on that day,” he said, adding that the officer would have first assaulted and battered the seven-year-old.

“The circumstances called for calm heads to treat with the behaviour of the first claimant in a restrained manner but the opposite in fact occurred.

“Having battered the first claimant, there was absolutely no need for the officers to pounce on her while she was on the ground. “Further, the act of WEC Edwards in pinning her to the ground in circumstances where the use of such force was wholly unnecessary amounted additionally to a clear and continued assault and battery upon her.

“One could well picture the unsavoury and traumatic sight that unfolded when the first claimant was pounced upon in the presence of her children with her mother pounding at the door in horror,” Rahim said in his decision.