Lawyer’s claim of false imprisonment rejected
A lawyer is seeking more than $2 million in damages against police and prosecutors on counts of false imprisonment, conspiracy to injure, and malicious prosecution.
Kamal Worrell issued a writ of summons against Director of Public Prosecutions Cindy Clarke, Department of Public Prosecution lawyers Carrington Mahoney and Larissa Burgess, Commissioner of Police Darrin Simons, and police officers Michael Redfern and Jason Smith.
Mr Worrell made his claim following a series of incidents in 2014 after he successfully defended Devon Hewey, who had been charged with attempted murder following a shooting outside a nightclub in 2012.
According to court papers, Mr Worrell met with the intended target of the shooting, Levon Thomas, who agreed that Mr Hewey did not look like either of the two men who tried to shoot him.
Mr Thomas repeated this assertion when cross-examined by Mr Worrell during Mr Hewey’s trial in November 2014. The defendant was subsequently acquitted by the jury.
But a month later Mr Worrell was arrested by police officers Mr Redfern and Mr Smith on suspicion of conspiracy to defeat justice. The arrest was made following a complaint from Mr Thomas that Mr Worrell had persuaded him to commit perjury.
Mr Worrell was detained at Hamilton Police Station for four days before being charged on counts of conspiring to defeat justice, fabricating evidence, and perjury.
But the charges were thrown out by a trial judge in December 2015 because of a lack of evidence.
A subsequent appeal of that decision launched by DPP attorneys Mr Mahoney and Ms Burgess was dismissed in June, 2016.
Last month, lawyers representing all defendants in the case applied to have Mr Worrell’s writ of summons struck out on a number of legal grounds.
In a ruling last week, Narinder Hargun, the Chief Justice agreed that the claim of false imprisonment should be dropped because it was statute barred.
He noted that a claim would have had to have been submitted within six years of Mr Worrell’s arrest in December, 2014.
Mr Justice Hargun wrote: “Accordingly, it is contended … that any claim for false imprisonment would therefore be outside the limitation period, which would have ended in December, 2020. The present proceedings were not commenced by Mr Worrell until May 6, 2022.
“The cause of action accrued when Mr Worrell was arrested and detained by the police in December, 2014 and in the circumstances it is clear that the limitation period for the cause of action based upon false imprisonment is statute barred and should be struck out. The court notes that in his reply submissions Mr Worrell accepted this as correct legal position.”
But the Chief Justice rejected an argument that Mr Worrell’s allegation of conspiracy to injure was also statute barred, claiming he was not satisfied that the case was “very clear”.
He wrote: ”It is at least arguable that the cause of action based upon conspiracy to injure does not accrue until the last overt act relied upon by the plaintiff has taken place.
“On that basis it is arguable that the cause of action relating to conspiracy did not accrue until the hearing of the DPP’s appeal before the Court of Appeal in October 2016. On this basis, the commencement of these proceedings would not be barred.”
Mr Justice Hargun also turned away arguments that the claim of malicious prosecution should be struck out. Lawyers for the DPP and Commissioner of Police claimed that Mr Worrell could not prove that the 2014 case against him was “without reasonable cause and that it was malicious”.
Mr Justice Hargun said there were “powerful arguments against the contention that the prosecution of Mr Worrell was commenced and continued without reasonable and probable cause”.
But he added: “However, the issue at this stage is not the assessment of potential arguments available to the parties in relation to a particular issue but whether the issue is arguable.
“On the latter question, the court concludes that it would be unsatisfactory to strike out a claim based upon the assessment of factual evidence which has not been tested at trial or in respect of which there has been no discovery.”
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