Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a fe­male bounc­er, who was as­sault­ed and ma­li­cious­ly pros­e­cut­ed af­ter she at­tempt­ed to stop a pair of plain clothes po­lice of­fi­cers from en­ter­ing a night­club with­out pay­ing the $60 cov­er charge.

High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for An­drea Phillips as she up­held her as­sault, wrong­ful ar­rest, false im­pris­on­ment and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al last week.

Phillips’ case stemmed from an in­ci­dent at Stum­blin Night­club at Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Wood­brook on Ju­ly 1, 2017.

Phillips was sta­tioned at the en­trance of the es­tab­lish­ment when PC Nicholas Hold­er and WPC Thomas-Ben­tham at­tempt­ed to en­ter.

She claimed that nei­ther Hold­er nor Thomas-Ben­tham, who were not dressed in po­lice uni­forms, iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers.

Phillips claimed she told the pair that Thomas-Ben­tham could en­ter free but Hold­er had to pay the cov­er charge.

She claimed that Hold­er re­fused and at­tempt­ed to force his way in­to the es­tab­lish­ment.

Phillips claimed that she at­tempt­ed to stop him and he punched her in the face.

Uni­formed po­lice of­fi­cers came to the club and took her and Hold­er to the po­lice sta­tion.

She claimed that she tried to make a re­port over what tran­spired but was ig­nored by po­lice of­fi­cers.

She was even­tu­al­ly charged with re­sist­ing ar­rest, ob­struct­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer and ob­scene lan­guage.

Phillips made nu­mer­ous court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charges were dis­missed af­ter Hold­er missed sev­er­al hear­ings.

In de­fence of the law­suit, Hold­er pre­sent­ed a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of the events.

He claimed that he went to the lo­ca­tion as an off-du­ty col­league, who was lim­ing there, claimed he saw a man who was want­ed in con­nec­tion to a rob­bery and firearm of­fences.

Hold­er claimed that he and Thomas-Ben­tham iden­ti­fied them­selves to Phillips and told them of the rea­son for the vis­it but she re­fused to let them in and used ob­scene lan­guage to­wards them.

He claimed that Phillips ad­vanced to­wards him ag­gres­sive­ly and they had a brief strug­gle. How­ev­er, he de­nied punch­ing her.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed found that Phillips’ ver­sion of the events was more cred­i­ble than Hold­er’s.

“In my opin­ion, sev­er­al as­pects of PC Hold­er’s ev­i­dence in his wit­ness state­ment was un­der­mined by his ev­i­dence in cross-ex­am­i­na­tion and the Sta­tion Di­ary ex­tracts, which demon­strat­ed that he was not a wit­ness of truth,” she said.

She not­ed that Hold­er did not call any of his col­leagues to cor­rob­o­rate his claims, in­clud­ing the of­fi­cer who pur­port­ed­ly re­port­ed see­ing the want­ed man in the club.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed found that Hold­er did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ar­rest and charge her for the of­fences.

She al­so in­ferred mal­ice based on his ac­tions.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered $83,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages for Phillips.

The judge al­so award­ed $20,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages based on Hold­er’s op­pres­sive con­duct.

“Hav­ing ac­cept­ed the Claimant’s ver­sion of the events, I am of the opin­ion that an award for ex­em­plary dam­ages is ap­pro­pri­ate since PC Hold­er as a ser­vant and/or agent of the State used his au­thor­i­ty to con­coct a case against the Claimant,” she said.

Phillips was rep­re­sent­ed by Cordell Sa­landy and Keneisha Browne. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Mur­vani Ojah Ma­haraj, Ha­ley Nar­i­nesingh and Lianne Thomas.