A Trinidadian woman who endured a two-year criminal prosecution following an assault by a serving police officer outside a Port of Spain nightclub has been awarded more than TT$103,000 in damages after the High Court ruled law enforcement deliberately fabricated a false case against her. The ruling, delivered by Justice Margaret Mohammed last Friday, vindicated 41-year-old Andrea Phillips, who was working as a bouncer at Stumblin’ Night Club on Ariapita Avenue, Woodbrook, when the 2017 confrontation unfolded.
The dispute that sparked the incident centered on a routine TT$60 venue cover charge. On the night of June 30, 2017, shortly before midnight, PC Nicholas Holder and WPC Thomas-Bentham approached the club’s entrance without identifying themselves as serving police officers, the court confirmed. Phillips maintained throughout her claim that she repeatedly informed Holder the cover charge was mandatory for all guests before entry. When Holder attempted to bypass payment and force his way into the venue, Phillips stepped in to block his path.
Justice Mohammed’s judgment accepted overwhelming evidence that Holder responded to the confrontation with unprovoked aggression, an action the judge ruled constituted a pre-emptive assault against Phillips. The judge corroborated Phillips’ account of the incident with testimony from Derick Timothy, the nightclub’s security manager, who was positioned just three to four feet from the altercation. Timothy told the court that after Phillips pushed Holder back in self-defense, the officer struck Phillips twice directly in the face. Justice Mohammed described Timothy as a completely credible, reliable witness whose account aligned with physical and documentary evidence presented to the court.
In contrast, the judge found critical contradictions and gaps in Holder’s version of events that undermined his entire testimony. Multiple inconsistencies between Holder’s statements and official police station diary extracts were exposed during cross-examination, and Holder failed to call any fellow officers to support his account of the confrontation. Most notably, he presented no medical evidence to back his unsubstantiated claim that Phillips had fractured his jaw during the incident. “He was not a witness of truth,” Justice Mohammed wrote in her final judgment.
The court also rejected Holder’s account of Phillips’ arrest, finding the arrest took place hours after the incident at Woodbrook Police Station, not at the nightclub as the officer had claimed. Justice Mohammed ruled Holder had no reasonable or probable cause to take Phillips into custody, and equally lacked legal grounds to charge her with obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, and use of obscene language. The criminal charges against Phillips were ultimately dismissed in July 2019, after Holder failed to appear for multiple required court hearings.
Justice Mohammed found sufficient evidence to conclude Holder acted out of personal malice against Phillips, pointing to his aggressive conduct at the venue entrance, his failure to inform Phillips of the specific reason for her arrest, and the irregular process through which she was detained and charged. During her 38 hours of pre-charge detention, Phillips was held in what the judge described as “inhumane conditions” in a police holding cell.
In her final ruling, Justice Mohammed awarded Phillips TT$83,000 in general and aggravated damages, plus an additional TT$20,000 in exemplary damages to penalize the officer’s misconduct, totaling more than TT$103,000 in compensation. The judge further ordered the state to cover all of Phillips’ legal costs, amounting to an additional TT$24,450. Phillips filed her civil claim against the Office of the Attorney General, which holds legal responsibility for the conduct of police officers in Trinidad and Tobago, over claims of assault, wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.