The State has been ordered to pay almost $150,000 in compensation to an electrical engineer who was wrongfully detained by police for six hours over allegedly stealing a circuit board from a client who failed to pay for his services.
Delivering a 24-page judgement in the Port-of-Spain High Court last Friday, Justice Joan Charles ruled that police did not have reasonable cause to suspect that Azard Ali, the owner of A & E Electrical Engineering Ltd, had committed the crime when they arrested him.
According to the evidence in the case, Ali was arrested by PC Harrysingh of the Couva CID at his businessplace on December 4, 2008.
Despite informing investigators that he had seized the circuit board from TSI Energy Services Ltd in Couva after its owner failed to pay him for work done, Ali was arrested and taken to the Couva Police Station.
He was kept in a holding cell and only released after the owner of TSI eventually came to the station and corroborated his claims.
In her judgement, Charles said the evidence from the officers was not credible as they failed to detail the investigations they did after receiving the report of the stolen item.
She also noted that Harrysingh had failed to review CCTV footage of the alleged theft which substantiated Ali’s claims.
“The fact of the non-production of relative records led me to the conclusion that the police were doing the company a favour rather than making any professional attempt to conduct a police investigation of a report of a crime,” Charles said.
She also suggested that Ali’s arrest may have been a ploy to intimidate him into changing his position on the company’s debt to him.
“On the evidence, it would appear that the purpose of the detention was to break Ali’s will and cause him to return the circuit board to the company regardless of the contractual issues between them,” Charles said, as she described Harrysingh’s conduct in the case as oppressive and unconstitutional.
Charles ordered that the State pay Ali $80,000 in general and aggravated damages and $25,000 in exemplary damages. She also ordered that five per cent interest be paid on the general damages from the date of Ali’s arrest to when she delivered judgement in the case.
Charles said the compensation was largely based on the embarrassment to Ali caused by being arrested in front of his staff and customers.
“A public arrest must affect his professional and business reputation and serve to lower him in the eyes of his employees,” Charles said.
The State was also ordered to pay Ali’s legal costs for bringing the lawsuit.
Ali was represented by Alana Rambarran and Kent Samlal.
