Trinidad: State to pay Venezuelan boy $2.4m

-unlawfully detained, exposed to sex acts at Heliport...

(Trinidad Express) In what is one of the largest awards of damages made by the courts in a case for false imprisonment, the High Court has directed that the State pay a 16year-old Venezuelan boy $2.4 million, exclusive of interest, after he was unlawfully detained for 456 days at the Heliport, Chaguaramas.

The court also ordered that the State pay $169,000, which represents the legal fees his mother incurred in pursuing the constitutional claim on her son’s behalf.

The award of damages is to be paid into the court by the Office of the Attorney General, after which the Registrar of the Court will have it deposited into an interest-bearing account that can only be accessed by the boy when he attains the age of 18.

The damages awarded are to be paid at an interest rate of 2.5% per annum from the date of service of the claim form on January 6, 2023, until yesterday’s date.

Making the order in a 114-page judgment yesterday afternoon was Justice Margaret Mohammed after the Privy Council in London remitted the matter to the High Court for the assessment of damages.

This came after the British law lords found on March 17, 2022, that the detention of the boy at the Heliport from December 15, 2020, to March 16, 2022—when a deportation order was issued in his name—was unlawful as there was no previous deportation or detention order issued by the Ministry of National Security against him.

Even though orders were subsequently issued against the two, they were not repatriated, given that the High Court ordered that they not be sent back to their home country pending the outcome of the constitutional claim.

During the course of the assessment proceedings, attorneys Gerald Ramdeen and Dayadai Harripaul, who appeared for the boy, submitted that based on a proper application of the evidence, the appropriate sum to award as general damages was $2.5 million and a separate sum be awarded for aggravated damages.

On the other hand, attorneys Stefan Jaikaran and Rachel Wright argued on behalf of the State that based on the particular facts, the AG’s Office ought not to be ordered to pay more than $400,000 in damages.