Published:Monday | November 2, 2015Livern Barrett
A Clarendon farmer who was forced to ingest a laxative by a policewoman who accused him of being a drug mule has won a $3.5-million award against the State.
The award, plus interest, was handed down last month after a High Court judge found that John Planter was humiliated and belittled and his constitutional rights breached. He had been taken from a line of arriving passengers at the Norman Manley International Airport in January 2012 and held in custody for some 26 hours because police personnel thought he was a "cocaine mule".
"The claimant's constitutional rights in this case were breached. By way of example, without necessarily identifying an exhaustive list ... the administration of a laxative to him and forcing him to defecate in a bedpan in full view of a female police officer is in breach of the Section 13 (3) right to protection from torture or inhumane or degrading punishment," High Court judge Kissock Laing wrote in his ruling.
Planter has been awarded $1.8 million for assault and battery; $1.2 million for aggravated damages, $500,000 for false imprisonment, and $50,000 for special damages.
The $3.5-million award will attract interest of three per cent annually from September 2012. Court records show that the Attorney General's Department failed to respond to the suit in the time allowed by law and was refused an extension to enter a defence. Planter claims his ordeal started when he returned to Jamaica on a flight from Guyana on January 24, 2012, and the policewoman approached him and enquired about the purpose of his trip.
Apparently not satisfied with his answer that he had gone on vacation and was shopping around for a water pump for his farm, Planter said in court documents that he was removed from the line, with his suitcase, and taken to a room where the bag was searched. more
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