DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A con­struc­tion work­er from Gas­par­il­lo, who was ar­rest­ed and de­tained by the po­lice af­ter his co-work­ers at­tacked their su­per­vi­sor in a dis­pute over their pay, is set to re­ceive $250,000 in com­pen­sa­tion from the state.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty and of­fered the com­pen­sa­tion as Bran­don Thomas’ wrong­ful ar­rest false im­pris­on­ment case was set to go to tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

The case stemmed from an in­ci­dent at a job site in Gas­par­il­lo on Au­gust 26, 2015.

Thomas, 42, from Har­mo­ny Hall, Gas­par­il­lo, and six co-work­ers were hired to re­cast the floor of a house owned by a po­lice of­fi­cer.

Thomas and the men com­plet­ed half the work but stopped around 4 pm af­ter they ran out of ma­te­r­i­al.

Their su­per­vi­sor re­port­ed­ly ad­vised them to stay at the lo­ca­tion as ad­di­tion­al ma­te­r­i­al was due to be de­liv­ered to com­plete the job that day.

The su­per­vi­sor al­leged­ly of­fered them dou­ble pay to com­plete the job, but he and his col­leagues re­fused as they de­mand­ed to be paid the agreed fee for the work they had al­ready com­plet­ed.

The su­per­vi­sor re­fused and was sit­ting in his car when he was at­tacked by two of Thomas’ co-work­ers, who slapped him and dragged him out of the ve­hi­cle.

Thomas claimed that he did not get in­volved and de­cid­ed to leave.

He claimed that he was walk­ing away from the site when he was ar­rest­ed by two po­lice of­fi­cers.

He was tak­en to the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion, where he was placed in a cell with six oth­er men, in­clud­ing his two co-work­ers who at­tacked their su­per­vi­sor.

He claimed that two days af­ter his ini­tial ar­rest, Supt Roger Alexan­der vis­it­ed the sta­tion with a cam­era crew for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Be­yond the Tape.

Thomas claimed that while his co-work­ers were be­ing in­ter­viewed, they ad­mit­ted on cam­era that he (Thomas) was not in­volved in the fra­cas. 

Thomas and his co-work­ers were then trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. His co-work­ers were placed on iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades, but he was not.

Thomas was even­tu­al­ly re­leased with­out be­ing charged on Sep­tem­ber 3, 2015.

Thomas said that he was trau­ma­tised by his wrong­ful de­ten­tion and suf­fers anx­i­ety.

“As a re­sult, I have ab­solute­ly no trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS, and I am fear­ful that the po­lice of­fi­cers can come and lock me up again for an of­fence which I nev­er com­mit­ted,” he said.

He al­so not­ed that his ap­pear­ance on the tele­vi­sion show con­tin­ues to cause him em­bar­rass­ment and hu­mil­i­a­tion.

“To this date, and as a re­sult of my ar­rest and de­ten­tion, I am la­belled as a crim­i­nal and a fugi­tive, and peo­ple to this date still recog­nise my face from the Be­yond the Tape seg­ment,” he said.

In her ev­i­dence, one of the po­lice of­fi­cers who ar­rest­ed Thomas main­tained that they had rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest him.

She claimed that she and her col­league took an ini­tial re­port from the vic­tim, and he on­ly clar­i­fied that Thomas was not in­volved in the at­tack when he was even­tu­al­ly dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal.

She al­so claimed that she was un­aware that Alexan­der and the cam­era crew in­ter­act­ed with Thomas and his co-work­ers.

Thomas was rep­re­sent­ed by Ab­del Mo­hammed and Sha­nia Sinanan. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Rachael Ja­cob.