Tobago man compensated for malicious prosecution

A man from Studley Park, Tobago, will be awarded $.2 million for malicious prosecution after he was accused of stealing pallets of cement he transported for someone to a job site.

On Thursday, Master Sherlanne Pierre assessed Isaac Bailey’s compensation, ordering that he should receive $160,000 in general and aggravated damages with interest of 2.5 per cent each year from the date his claim was served to Thursday’s date.

He will also receive $17,164.20 in special damages, also with 1.5 per cent interest from August 15, 2013, which is when he was arrested for larceny, to Thursday’s date.

The State has also been ordered to pay $38,389.18 in costs.

On August 13, 2021, Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honey well granted judgment in Bailey’s favour and ordered compensation to be assessed by a master of the court.

In her reasons, Pierre said she accepted that Bailey lost his job after he was charged and should be compensated for that loss, the reputational damage and his mental distress.

She awarded him loss of earnings for three months and provided the breakdown for her calculation.

In looking at comparative cases, Pierre also took into account the years in which some of those awards were made and the fall in the purchasing power of the dollar.

Bailey, 44, a heavy equipment operator and truck driver, said he was at Sangsters Hill waiting for his boss to receive a shipment of chairs coming in on the ferry from Trinidad, when two men approached him. He knew one as a DVD seller in Scarborough. They asked him to transport four pallets of cement from the MIC building in Canaan to the YTEPP building in Scarborough.

He told the men he could not immediately do the job, since he was waiting for his boss. Bailey tried to contact a co-worker at the rental company but he was also unableto do it since his truck had a faulty hydraulic line.

His boss returned, they off-loaded the chairs and Bailey was sent to the Old Grange police station to deliver an insurance policy for a vehicle involved in an accident in Trinidad before coming on the ferry.

After dropping off the insurance policy, he and his co-worker went to the MIC compound with the two men he previously met, and took the cement to the YTEPP building. He said he asked one of the men if the cement belonged to him and was told people would drop cement at that location in bulk, which would be transported to areas where he was doing construction work.

The next day, his co-worker told him the cement they had transported did not belong to the two men who paid them for the job.

Bailey said he told his boss and went to the police station to make a report. There, he was arrested and despite pleading his innocence, he was charged four days later. He remained in custody for two days after appearing in court before he was granted bail. Eventually he was found not guilty of the charge on October 14, 2015.

Bailey said he was fired from his job, was told the charge would reflect negatively on the company, and was also embarrassed and shunned by friends, family, neighbours and co-workers.

He also said he could not financially support his then-pregnant wife and lost confidence in the police service, since he assisted investigators who failed to do a proper investigation before he was charged.

Bailey was represented by attorney Abdel Mohammed.