Cop loses bee-sting appeal

A police officer who was attacked by a swarm of African killer bees while searching for a missing person in 2011 has been ordered to pay $9, 333.33 in costs to the State after he lost his appeal.

Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Peter Rajkumar and Vasheist Kokaram initially dismissed Ameer Mohammed’s appeal in September, and recently provided their written reasons for doing so.

Mohammed had filed a lawsuit for compensation claiming negligence and breach of statutory duty under the Occupational Safety and Health Act on the part of the State.

In 2017, Justice David Harris dismissed Mohammed’s claim.

Mohammed claimed that a threat and risk assessment was not done before he and other officers went to La Laja Road, Blanchisseuse, in search of Neil Chin or to recover his body, on October 25, 2011.

Police found Chin’s decomposed body that day.

However, in their reasons, the appellate court judges said it was clear a threat and risk assessment was done, since the operational plan, which was given to the officers before they went out on the search and recovery mission, identified the risks to the team as those associated with marijuana planters and persons of ill repute (criminal activities) in the La Laja Road area. The operational plan was done in accordance with a police department order on jungle operations and marijuana-eradication policy and ensured officers were provided with resources including body armour, firearms and other equipment they might need.

The judges said from analysing the evidence and the judge’s findings, no reasonable complaint could be made that the judge got it wrong in his decision.

Mohammed argued that if a proper assessment had been done, it would have been discovered that Chin was a beekeeper who had bees on his premises.

But the judges said the officer failed to provide evidence on how he knew this.

“Even if we were to accept that bees were kept by the missing person, the fact that bees are kept does not make people in the area susceptible to an attack by bees. One would assume that the bees would be in hives. There was no evidence of the behaviour of bees or the likelihood of bees swarming that the Respondent should protect against,” Mendonca said in the ruling.

The judges also pointed out that the OSH Act did not make any specific reference to guarding against swarming bees.

The State, in defending the claim, denied the existence of an actionable duty of care and statutory duty, and provided evidence on the nature, extent and gravity of the injuries Mohammed suffered and also the compensation he had received from the police service since the incident.