Man gets almost $1m in 2 years for police persecution

FOR the second time in as many months, a Claxton Bay man who has complained of being consistently targeted by police has received another award of compensation for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.

Mark Hagley yesterday received an additional $200,000 in compensation, which was assessed by Master Marissa Robertson in a claim which was not defended by the State. It was his third claim for compensation.

In 2017, Hagley received an award of more than $425,000, and last month, he received $270,000. In all, he has received close to $1 million in compensation, plus interest and legal costs.

Speaking after his third award yesterday, Hagley said he expects the police to come after him again, but he added, “Let them come. I am ready for them.”

In his three claims, Hagley was represented by attorneys Abdel and Shabanna Mohammed.

Hagley’s third claim surrounded his arrest on February 5, 2010. He said he was liming at a bar on Southern Main Road, Claxton Bay, with two friends when a police jeep drove past, stopped and turned around.

He said two police officers walked towards him. Having been previously framed by police in an incident in June 2006, he told them to search him, as he had nothing illegal on him. Hagley said he also offered to remove his clothing to prove his innocence but the policemen grabbed him and shouted at him, “ Shut yuh mouth, yuh under arrest.”

He said he was searched but nothing was found on him. Nevertheless he was handcuffed and taken to the St Margaret’s Police Station, where he was put in a “nasty” cell and given a charge slip which said he was being charged for being in possession of cocaine.

Hagley said he was angered and frustrated because he had never had cocaine in his possession and it was the second time he was being accused by police at the same station of a crime which he had never committed.

Three days later, Hagley was taken to the San Fernando Police Station and then to the magistrates’ court for his first court appearance. He was granted $50,000 bail but was unable to secure it and spent 42 days at the remand yard at the Golden Grove Prison in Arouca before he was able to.

He went back to court some 20 times and on March 12, 2014, his case was dismissed, since the arresting officer hardly ever went to court – he did so only four times – even when the matter was set for trial.

Hagley said his arrest caused him emotional distress, embarrassment and humiliation, and because of it he has no faith or trust in the police.

In his first claim, Hagley had been slapped with 11 charges or rape, kidnapping, larceny of a car, cellphones and jewellery theft and serious indecency in 2006. In that matter, before Justice Margaret Mohammed, he said he lost his job as a casual worker at Trinidad Cement Ltd and people in the area would jeer at him, calling him thief, kidnapper and rapist. He spent 37 days on remand and the charges were eventually dropped when neither the police officer who charged him nor the witnesses cited by the prosecution gave evidence at the preliminary inquiry.

At the trial before Mohammed, the State offered no evidence, since the police officer who charged Hagley also did not show up for the civil case. Attorneys said they were unable to find him.

Hagley’s second claim, last month, before Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell, surrounded his arrest on March 30, 2013, at a friend’s house at Cedar Hill Road. He was charged with possession of marijuana by a police officer who is currently before the courts for the murder of a San Fernando man in 2016.

His case was eventually dismissed at the magistrates’ court because none of the witnesses appeared and no file or exhibit was presented to the court. Arising out of that arrest, Hagley spent 113 days in prison.