PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – A High Court has ordered the State to compensate nine men TT$2.1 million (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) each after they were acquitted of the murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman in 2016.
Naipaul-Coolman, 52, the former chief executive of the supermarket chain Naipaul’s Xtra Foods, was kidnapped from the driveway of her residence in Lange Park, Chaguanas, in west-central Trinidad, on the night of December 19, 2006. Her body was never found. Her kidnappers demanded a three million dollar ransom for her release.
The High Court Master, Martha Alexander, Monday awarded TT$19,168,917.56 for malicious prosecution and exemplary damages; costs amounting to $200,917.56; and the cost of an expert witness of $68,000, making it perhaps the most significant award in Trinidad and Tobago’s judicial history.
Interest will be added to the damages for each man, at a rate of 2.5 percent, from May 29, 2020, to January 30, this year.
“Persons plucked out of society and thrown into a maelstrom where they are incarcerated for nine years on questionable evidence should not be expected to adjust, survive or thrive in abysmal prison conditions such as to justify ‘tapering off’ compensatory awards,” Master Alexander said in her ruling.
The nine men – Shervon Peters, Devon Peters, Anthony Gloster, Joel Fraser, Ronald Armstrong, Keida Garcia, Jameel Garcia, Marlon Trimmingham, and Antonio Charles – were among ten persons who had gone on trial in 2016 for Naipaul-Coolman’s murder.
Eight were acquitted, and one was released after the trial judge upheld a no-case submission.
But two men – Earl “Bobo” Trimmingham and Lyndon “Iron” James – were ordered to be re-tried while Allan “Scanny” Martin, who was also on trial, was killed in 2016 during a failed escape attempt from the Frederick Street prison in Port of Spain.
In October 2021, Gloster was killed in a drive-by shooting in Diego Martin, west of here.
The nine men had filed a malicious prosecution claim in May 2020, which the State did not defend, despite having entered an appearance. A team of lawyers, including former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, SC, represented them.
On Tuesday, the Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs said it “has ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the State’s failure to file a Defence in (the) civil action claiming malicious prosecution” brought by the nine men.
The Office said that a news conference would be held on Wednesday where the matter would be addressed.
In July 2021, Justice Joan Charles entered judgment in their favor and sent the matter to a master for assessment. During the evaluation, testimony was heard from an expert witness, clinical psychologist Isolde Ali Ghent-Garcia, on the effects of nine years of incarceration on them.
Ghent-Garcia said the men had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, psychosis, and anxiety because of their nine-year remanded incarceration.
Master Alexander said because of the evidence from the psychologist, she could not accept or agree with the State’s submission on cooperation because of the similarity of diagnosis. The Master said she was “stunned by this attack on the expert.”
“They all had to endure nine or seven years of incarceration in sub-humane prison conditions. They all experienced lengthy prosecution based on questionable and unreliable evidence from the defendant’s witnesses that was, ultimately, adjudged to be malicious prosecution,” Master Alexander said in her ruling, also referring to a decision by High Court judge Justice Carol Gobin on the issue of cruel and inhumane conditions in prison, noting “unfortunately, this might no longer shock the conscience of this nation.
“These prison experiences suffered by the present claimants were deplorable, mentally grating, sub-human conditions. Such shocking conditions applied across the prison system while they were incarcerated at the various prison institutions and police stations,” she added.
Conditions included overcrowding, poor ventilation, poor lighting, poor diet, inhumane prison transport, lack of airing, poor sleeping conditions, lack of medical attention, and unsanitary cell conditions, including slop pails or none.
Three years after they were incarcerated while awaiting trial, one of the men was diagnosed with kidney disease and given Panadol rather than proper treatment.
They also spoke of sleeping on “beds” made out of newspaper spread on the ground.
“They returned to destroyed family lives, as wives had moved on with their lives and their children had grown apart. When the prosecution ended, they returned to a society with reputations of murderers, kidnappers, and rapists.
“No amount of money could compensate for or restore destroyed reputations, but money is this court’s only recourse to do justice,” Master Alexander said, adding that once reputations were destroyed, the men had to learn to live with the impact of their prosecution.
She described their treatment in prison as an “extra-judicial sentence” given while on remand “without the color of a legal conviction” and referred to the “shredding” of their reputations.
and then  each after they were acquitted){kind=link}