The Bermuda Police Service has defended the arrest of Mahesh Reddy, saying the summary arrest and subsequent search of his home was lawful.

While council for Dr Reddy has sought a declaration that his arrest was unlawful and the return of items seized, lawyer Mark Diel has said officers suspected Dr Reddy had committed an offence and had reasonable grounds to perform the arrest.

He also stated that one reason for the search was to find the original version of Dr Reddy’s medical certifications, which he said had not been shown to the police or their legal team, despite requests.

While the Bermuda Medical Council had seen the documents and stated they were satisfied by their legitimacy, Mr Diel said that there were errors in the copies received by the police, which he described as one of several points that raised concerns.

“This is a medical institution and people who are supposed to be well versed in Latin phraseology,” he said. “One wonders how in their standard documentation they managed to get ‘bona fide’ wrong. All I’m saying is that requires an answer.”

Dr Reddy, chief medical officer at Bermuda Healthcare Services, was arrested last May in connection with an investigation into allegations he ordered unnecessary scans on patients.

However, he said the arrest and subsequent search of his home was unlawful, labelling it as an attempt to intimidate him to give evidence against former premier Ewart Brown, who owns Bermuda Healthcare Services.

Lord Peter Goldsmith, QC, representing Dr Reddy, said his client had been stopped at the airport on three occasions since the investigation into the healthcare provider began in 2012, including once in the United States by a Homeland Security officer, who told him if he refused to give evidence he would be prosecuted, jailed and deported.

He also called the arrest of Dr Reddy unnecessary and heavy-handed, telling the court that Dr Reddy had been willing to assist police.

However, Mr Diel said the legal test to determine if an arrest was lawful was if the officer suspected that the individual had committed an offence and had reasonable grounds to believe that was the case.

Once those two points are met, it is up to the applicants to prove that it was not “reasonable” for the officer to exercise his discretion to carry out the arrest.

On that point, Mr Diel called on the court to look at affidavits from several officers, but added that the police were hesitant to give information that might compromise the ongoing investigation, calling the legal action a “disguised discovery attempt”.

“The police shouldn’t be having, at the investigation stage, to tip their hat and say ‘this is what we want to ask’ well before we actually get to ask the questions,” he said.

While Lord Goldsmith had said the use of “six or eight” officers was a show of force, Mr Diel said it was necessary to conduct the search in a reasonable length of time.

Responding to complaints about the “high profile” nature of the arrest causing embarrassment, Mr Diel said that the BPS made no comment on the arrest, but statements to the media were released by Bermuda Healthcare Services and Dr Reddy’s legal team.

“Any complaint of them being humiliated by a highly publicised event was of his own making,” he said. “It certainly wasn’t the Bermuda Police Service’s doing.”