Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State is set to pay sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion to a used-car deal­er af­ter the de­ten­tion of 29 ve­hi­cles by the po­lice for sev­er­al years. 

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al agreed to pay com­pen­sa­tion to Han­nah Bovell and Jean Pierre’s Au­to Sup­plies and Ser­vices Lim­it­ed yes­ter­day as their case was set to go on tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad.

The tri­al was set to go ahead un­de­fend­ed as the AG’s Of­fice failed to meet a dead­line giv­en by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad for fil­ing wit­ness state­ments in the case.

The com­pen­sa­tion is now ex­pect­ed to be as­sessed by a High Court Mas­ter at a lat­er date. 

Bovell ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion af­ter she took con­trol of the com­pa­ny when her hus­band, Jean Pierre As­see, who found­ed it, died in ear­ly 2016. They claimed that be­tween 2013 and 2019, the used ve­hi­cles val­ued at $1,837,000 were seized by the po­lice and de­tained at sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions and an im­pound lot in Sea Lots. 

Bovell sought in­for­ma­tion on the ve­hi­cles from the po­lice, and eight were re­leased to her. She was un­able to track down some of the ve­hi­cles, and three were re­port­ed­ly hand­ed over to un­known third par­ties. She then filed the law­suit in re­la­tion to the ve­hi­cles, which she claimed were be­ing un­law­ful­ly de­tained. 

Bovell and the com­pa­ny claimed that they suf­fered a loss of in­come as the com­pa­ny had en­tered in­to “work-to-own” arrange­ments in re­la­tion to some of the ve­hi­cles.

“As a con­se­quence of the wrong­ful de­ten­tion and/or con­ver­sion of the 29 ve­hi­cles, the claimants suf­fered loss of earn­ings since they were not able to sell these ve­hi­cles for which they had al­ready ex­pend­ed mon­ey to pur­chase,” their lawyers said. 

“The claimants al­so suf­fered con­se­quen­tial loss of use and earn­ings as a re­sult of the de­pre­ci­a­tion and de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the ve­hi­cles that have been ex­posed to the el­e­ments for years,” they added. 

They al­so claimed that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was in clear breach of its own Stand­ing Or­ders by fail­ing to keep ac­cu­rate and up-to-date records in re­la­tion to the ve­hi­cles. 

In late 2023, the AG’s Of­fice ap­plied to have the claim struck out on the ba­sis that it was filed out­side the four-year statu­to­ry lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for bring­ing such cas­es. It al­so claimed Bovell and the com­pa­ny failed to prove that they were the le­git­i­mate own­ers of the ve­hi­cles. 

The ap­pli­ca­tion was re­ject­ed by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, who ruled that it was “de­void of mer­it.” He ruled that the AG’s Of­fice had not demon­strat­ed that any oth­er par­ty had bet­ter ti­tle to the ve­hi­cles.

“The court al­so takes ju­di­cial no­tice of the fact that a re­gret­table prac­tice does ex­ist where­by peo­ple buy ve­hi­cles and do not trans­fer same to ob­vi­ate trans­fer charges or where used car deal­ers would buy ve­hi­cles and on­ly trans­fer them when they are resold,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. “As a con­se­quence, in many in­stances, the on­ly ev­i­dence to es­tab­lish proof of own­er­ship or an in­ter­est in such a ve­hi­cle is a re­ceipt,” he added. 

Bovell and her com­pa­ny were rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams and An­toinette Lu­cas-An­drews.