Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has or­dered over $60,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for a 48-year-old woman, who, along with her friends, was tor­tured by a group of sol­diers and Coast Guard of­fi­cers dur­ing the last State of Emer­gency (SoE) in 2011. 

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Su­jes McIn­tosh as he up­held her false im­pris­on­ment and as­sault and bat­tery case against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al af­ter pre­sid­ing over a tri­al be­tween Mon­day and yes­ter­day. 

The in­ci­dent from which the law­suit stemmed oc­curred at a house on Gas­pa­ree Is­land on Au­gust 31, 2011. 

McIn­tosh claimed that she and her then-boyfriend Ryan Hen­ry were stay­ing with a group of friends at a house when T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) per­son­nel ar­rived to con­duct a search.

She claimed that the of­fi­cers and sol­diers sep­a­rat­ed the men and women in­to two groups. 

She claimed that the sol­diers in­ter­ro­gat­ed the men and as­sault­ed them. Dur­ing the as­sault, the sol­diers re­port­ed­ly cut Hen­ry’s dread­locks. 

McIn­tosh claimed that she and the oth­er women were forced to kneel and giv­en cas­es of beer bot­tles to hold over their heads. 

She claimed that the sol­diers ac­cused them of be­ing les­bians and ques­tioned why they were lim­ing with the men, who they (the sol­diers) de­scribed as ug­ly. 

She said that af­ter the sol­diers told them to put down the cas­es, one slapped her across her face. 

She claimed that she saw the sol­diers force the men to walk in­to the wa­ter in front of the house un­til it reached their necks be­fore or­der­ing them to re­turn to shore. 

McIn­tosh said that af­ter the of­fi­cers and sol­diers failed to find any­thing il­le­gal in the house, they took both groups to the Coast Guard’s Staubles Bay base in Ch­aguara­mas. 

They then took the more se­ri­ous­ly in­jured of the friends to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. 

In her law­suit, McIn­tosh claimed that she still suf­fered from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der from the in­ci­dent. 

Sev­er­al of the sol­diers and of­fi­cers tes­ti­fied be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad and de­nied McIn­tosh’s and Hen­ry’s claims of wrong­do­ing.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that he be­lieved McIn­tosh’s ver­sion of the events over the claims made by the law en­force­ment of­fi­cials. 

“She did in­stil in the court an un­shake­able feel­ing that she was a wit­ness of truth,” he said. 

He found in­con­sis­ten­cies in the of­fi­cials’ claims as he point­ed out that one of the most se­nior among them mis­tak­en­ly claimed that the women were found on the beach but lat­er ad­mit­ted that they were in­side the house when they ar­rived. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that while the TTDF of­fi­cials had spe­cial pow­ers to stop, search and in­ter­ro­gate civil­ians dur­ing the SoE, they had to have rea­son­able sus­pi­cion and pur­pose. 

“A state of emer­gency can nev­er au­tho­rise of­fi­cers to ter­rorise cit­i­zens or to tram­ple up­on their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and pro­tec­tions,” he said. 

Not­ing that there were mul­ti­ple sim­i­lar law­suits aris­ing out of that SoE, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, “It was a very re­ac­tionary state of af­fairs as op­posed to well-co­or­di­nat­ed and planned op­er­a­tions.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad crit­i­cised the of­fi­cials for their “com­plete­ly un­ac­cept­able” con­duct. 

“This is not the type of con­duct that could ever be found to be ac­cept­able for those dis­charg­ing law en­force­ment du­ties,” he said. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered $25,000 in dam­ages for as­sault and bat­tery and $25,000 for false im­pris­on­ment. The state was al­so or­dered to pay $10,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages for the of­fi­cials’ con­duct and her le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered in­ter­est on all the com­pen­sa­tion ex­cept ex­em­plary dam­ages start­ing from when the case was filed in 2016.

Stat­ing that he was dis­tressed by the de­lay in re­solv­ing the case but not­ed that it was due to it (the case) be­ing re-dock­et­ed to him af­ter a col­league left it un­fin­ished when he was pro­mot­ed to the Court of Ap­peal. 

In May 2019, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed up­held a sim­i­lar case from Hen­ry’s cousin Calvin La Vende, who was among the group. La Vende was award­ed $160,000 in com­pen­sa­tion. 

McIn­tosh was rep­re­sent­ed by Garvin Nar­ine-Ram­sep­a­ul and Sand­hyaa Ram­ber­ran.