A 14-year-old girl is suing the State for in excess of $25 million in damages for what she said was her unlawful detention at the East La Penitence Police Station where she alleges being “subjected” among other things, to “sexual predatory advances” by female adult prisoners.
In the claim filed by the teen’s adult sister, she is seeking against the Childcare and Protection Agency and its Director Ann Greene; declarations that they breached their statutory duty of care to her and for negligence in allowing her detention.
She is also seeking exemplary and punitive damages for what she said is their negligence and failure to have her removed from police custody to a facility more fitting for the detention of minors.
The claimant is also asking for costs and any further order the court deems just to grant.
Further, she wants interest to be paid on the $25 million she is seeking, in accordance with the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.
Citing the grounds for her claim against Greene, the Agency and the Attorney General who are all listed as defendants jointly and severally; the teen deposes that she was held against her will and under arrest for five days—from December 3rd to 7th, 2020 at the East La Penitence Police Station on narcotics investigations.
She said that on December 7th, 2020 acting Chief Justice Roxane George SC heard her application for bail at habeas corpus proceedings at which she was eventually ordered to be released into the custody of the Childcare and Protection Agency.
The teen said that during her detention at the police station, she was visited by representatives of the Agency and that Greene had indicated at the hearing before the Chief Justice that “efforts were being made” by the Agency “to persuade the Commander of Police” to have her released into the Agency’s custody from the first day of her detention.
Nonetheless, the teen said that in contravention of expressed provisions of the law and duties imposed on the Agency and its Director, she would spend the next four days in a cell at the police station with adult female prisoners.
The claimant alleges being subjected to sleeping in an upright position on a wooden chair and on a mattress and cardboard on the cold concrete; and to being shacked to a chair for hours in “infinite pain and trauma” and subjected to sexual predatory advances by other prisoners.
The teen deposed that during the visit by representatives from the Childcare and Protection Agency, they observed what she described as the “transgressions” meted out to her, except the sexual advances she referenced.
Despite this, she complains that those representatives left her “in that state, condition and place and did not forcibly remove her.”
Through her attorney Eusi Anderson, the teen has advanced that Greene, the Agency and the Attorney General all had a duty to ensure that the statutory duty of care imposed by the Juvenile Offenders Act, the Rights of the Child Convention and the Childcare and Protection Agency Act on them, to her, was discharged.
Anderson has underscored that in accordance with the Childcare and Protection Agency Act, the Agency has a duty, notwithstanding any other law, for the implementation and decisions in relation to laws governing children which include among other things, custody.
The lawyer has advanced that the Act also makes provisions requiring the Agency “to make timely interventions in cases where the actions or conduct of a person, where that person has authority, care or custody of a child, have resulted in or are likely to give rise to abuse of a child.”
The claim advances, too, that the Agency in accordance with the Act, has a duty “to take any necessary action against any private person or organization to ensure that safety and well-being of children under the care of that person or organization are promoted and protected.”
Among other things, counsel also argues that in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, “every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so….”
He notes, too, that no child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; should not be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily and that their arrest, detention or imprisonment must be in conformity with the law.
The teen is advancing through her attorney that the defendants breached their duty of care towards her by failing to take “any and all adequate measures” to have her removed from the custody of the police.
She said, too, that they failed to object to her arrest and also to take her to a “suitable, minor-friendly and appropriate detention” facility during the course of the police investigation, including, but not limited to the Sophia Holding Facility.
The teen is arguing too, that the defendants failed to provide counselling, guidance, support and or any kind of welfare measure to protect her rights or to implement systems to prevent and/or curtail sexual harassment by female adult prisoners.
