Jahiem Peters, the seventeen-year-old who in July of last year, had accused police at the Vigilance Station of torturing him while in their custody, has filed a $150 million lawsuit against the State, for the “permanent partial disability” and other injuries he said he has suffered.
At the time, the fisherman of Annandale, East Coast Demerara, had been apprehended by police in relation to an armed-robbery probe and kept in custody beyond the 72 hours permitted by law.
The boy’s father, Esse Peters, had filed a court action to secure his release, which a Judge later granted, ruling that his detention beyond the constitutional period was unlawful.
Following the order, the young man, who at that age was still legally regarded a minor, was immediately released from police custody.
Section 2 of the Juvenile Justice Act of 2018, defines a juvenile as a person 14 years or older, but less than 18 years old.
In the current action filed by the now 19-year-old himself, he is seeking damages along with interest, court costs and all other orders which he said the Court may deem just to grant him for what he says he has suffered at the hands of the police.
In his statement of claim (SoC), Peters allege that a police officer set him alight and burnt him about his body to provide information and confess to the crime.
Detailing the torture he claims was meted out to him, Peters said that the officer used a lighter to set his jersey on fire, before proceeding to burn him on the lower arm. All the while he was handcuffed.
The young man said that because of the “severe multi-degree burns” he sustained, to his torso, upper limbs and back; he had to be hospitalised for several days and required surgery, including skin grafts.
Through his attorney Eusi Anderson, Peters submits that he had done nothing to provoke the “violence,” “cruel and inhuman treatment” he said was visited upon him by the police.
He further went on to say that he had fully cooperated with the police, complied with orders given and at all material times maintained a calm disposition; while stating that he never conducted himself in any way that suggested resistance to arrest or in other manner to hinder the police investigation.
The Claimant said that the policeman was “deliberate, wilful and reckless,” in his conduct which has caused him “permanent partial disability, scars burn marks and trauma that can never be erased.”
Pointing out that he was a minor at the time, Peters underscored that he had been held in an adult prison facility, while being “interrogated and tortured,” in the absence of his parents; stating that even though his family had protested, the police refused to have him transferred to a juvenile holding facility.
Apart from the police officer, the Attorney General is the other listed defendant.
Background
Peters had been admitted to the Burn Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), for treatment of the burns he said he had suffered at the hands of the police at Vigilance.
The family, through Anderson, had lamented the more than 72-hour detention—for which the law provides without charges being laid—that the teen had been in the custody of the police.
He vigorously denied the police’s version that it was he who had burnt himself while reportedly smoking in a cell.
He maintains that it was the police who had burnt and tortured him.
