District constable’s 13-year nightmare ends
A district constable, who has been off the job for 13 years due to a blunder on the part of his superiors following his wrongful detention, is expected to receive millions in back pay after the Court of Appeal on Friday declared that his services had not been terminated.
“I’m so happy and so overwhelmed that the court has given me justice,” District Constable Carlton Smith told the Jamaica Observer on the weekend.
“It was a nightmare,” Smith said while making allegations of being framed by his senior.
“It was a nightmare knowing… that you were put out of a job,” added Smith, who was represented by attorney Hugh Wildman.
He said the past 13 years have been a financial struggle, that he’s in debt, and that his 19-year-old daughter had been unable to attend university because of his circumstances.
Smith was appointed as a district constable in 1990 in the parish of Clarendon and was assigned to the May Pen Police Station up to 2002.
Court documents state that arising from an incident at the station in May 2002, Inspector Lascelles Taylor made certain accusations against Smith, which resulted in him being beaten and locked in a cell for two hours.
According to court documents, Taylor apologised to Smith at a subsequent meeting, but sent him home that day. Taylor also cancelled Smith’s duties and said that he would ask the superintendent of police for the parish to transfer Smith to another station, the court documents said.
Smith received no further communication from the police for over a year regarding his status or employment and remained off the job. After having his attorney write to the commissioner of police, Smith received a letter from Superintendent Bent, who was the officer in charge of the May Pen Police Station, notifying him of his intent to recommend his termination to the commissioner.
Several meetings were scheduled with Bent, Smith and his attorney, but they failed to materialise.
On November 1, 2011, Smith filed a fixed-date claim form in the Supreme Court, naming Taylor, the commissioner of police, and the attorney general as defendants. Chief among the declarations were that the termination of his services was “unlawful, null and void and of no effect”, and that his services as a district constable could only have been legally discontinued by the commissioner of police under Section 2 of the Constables (District) Act.
The defendants failed to file acknowledgement of service within the time prescribed by the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), and on March 12, 2012, Smith filed an application for permission to enter judgement against them.
The application was fixed for hearing on June 4, 2012, within which time the defendants filed the relevant documents and had Smith’s claim struck out, leading to the matter being brought before the Court of Appeal.
The appellate court on Friday overturned the Supreme Court’s decision and granted Smith’s declarations.