LAWYERS have given the state 30 days to respond after claiming that their client had denied bail on robbery charges because of an erroneous criminal record entry.
Lawyers Frank Gittens and Douglas Bayley in a December 4, 2025 pre-action protocol letter to the Solicitor General said that a non-existent pending firearm matter led to their client being denied bail and kept in custody for months.
They said that their client, a man, was arrested on November 15, 2019, and charged days later with robbery-related offences in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court.
When he first appeared on November 20, 2019, tracing information was unavailable. Two days later, the letter said, police produced a tracing report showing a pending charge dated January 2011, at the Arima Magistrates’ Court.
But because the amended Bail Act bars magistrates from granting bail to accused persons with pending matters of a similar nature, the magistrate “had no discretion” to consider bail. The lawyers wrote that their client insisted he had no such case, but he was remanded and repeatedly denied bail at subsequent hearings.
The lawyers said that the error remained uncorrected until an application was made in the High Court and the man was granted bail by Master Margaret Sookraj-Goswami on September 10, 2020.
The letter said the criminal records office of the police service later confirmed the 2011 matter never existed and removed it from the record. They wrote that the mistake was “gross negligence,” resulting in the unlawful deprivation of their client allegedly endured overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, including a dysfunctional toilet and poor ventilation, and was beaten by prison officers during a disturbance in March 2020.
He is seeking compensatory and vindicatory damages for the alleged breaches of his rights with the pre-action letter indicated that he was the right to liberty, protection of the law and reasonable bail without just cause, were violated.
It also contends that his near year-long detention was the direct result of the state’s administrative error and failure to correct it. (CMC)
