Judge slams police for falsely charging Chaguanas man in 2014

A HIGH COURT judge has again read the riot act to the police after he ordered the state to pay the estate of a man who was slapped with multiple charges for offences allegedly committed while he was in police and prison custody in 2014.

In an oral ruling after a brief trial on May 12, Justice Frank Seepersad ordered $280,000 in compensation for the mother of Ricky Taylor, who was killed by police on September 8, 2022, before the lawsuit was filed.

He said he found the conduct of the police officers to be “so egregious,” he made an order for exemplary damages, again renewing a previous call he made for these sums to be paid by the errant officers.

“It is time the State Liability and Proceedings Act be amended so that police officers who flout the law, who demonstrate a total lack of appreciation for the rights of citizens and by their behaviour bring the rule of law into disrepute ought to bear the financial burden of the awards issued by the High Court.

“But until that is done, again, taxpayers would have to bear the brunt of the awards, and the officers proceed without having any direct consequence for the breaches which occurred.”

In deciding the case, Seepersad said the police involved in the case abdicated their responsibilities to conduct a proper investigation.

According to the lawsuit, Taylor was first arrested at his home in Chaguanas on April 25, 2014. He was kept in custody from that date to May 7, 2014, when he was taken to seven police stations and questioned about alleged break-ins and larcenies. On May 7, he was charged with housebreaking, which allegedly took place on April 30, and appeared in court and denied bail.

The lawsuit said it would have been impossible for him to commit the offence since he was in police custody at the time.

Three more charges were laid against him for alleged offences that took place in June 2014. In those, he was jointly charged with two other men whom he did not know.

The lawsuit said he could not have committed the alleged offences in June 2014 as he was in prison custody at the time.

In his ruling, Seepersad said the court was prepared to infer the requisite degree of malice on the part of the police officers involved in the case, pointing out that the officer who laid the June 2014 charges did not give a witness statement to justify his actions.

He said it defied logic that Taylor would have committed the alleged offences while being in police and prison custody. These cases were eventually dismissed in 2017 and 2023.

Seepersad said that had the officers conducted a proper investigation, they would have known Taylor couldn't have committed the offences. He also said the police’s conduct was “unacceptable.”

Seepersad also took issue with the state’s attorneys for defending what he said was the “indefensible.”

“The very manner in which this matter has been conducted leaves the court to question really what was the state of affairs at the Office of the Attorney General…”

He said the lawsuit was filed long after the limitation period had expired on the April 2014 charge, yet the matter proceeded and “now the taxpayers have to be saddled with an order of the court.”

“That is an abdication of the responsibility of the attorney.”

He also said it was “incomprehensible” that the state defended the June 2014 charges. He said attorneys for the state had a responsibility to tell their superiors that they cannot defend a case even if such a mandate was given.

“There is no defence in law which can be properly offered in relation to the claim that has been made, and monetary constraints can never be the overriding factor in doing what is right and what the law requires.

“I'm sadly disappointed with the conduct of the state lawyers in this matter from the inception by the filing of a defence and the fact that the court has had to spend an entire morning conducting a trial which, quite frankly, ought never to have been conducted because the state ought to have done the responsible thing and admit that the charges were the result of extremely poor and unprofessional policing,”

“If, as this matter has shown, citizens in this country are subjected to this type of behaviour, by the police and then by the state, when they come before the court, on malicious prosecution claims, then we are in a sorry state of affairs,” the judge said.

Taylor’s mother was represented by attorneys Joseph Sookoo and Abigail Roach.