Wendell Beckles was held nearly eight years after a magistrate freed him. His compensation is now TT$1.1 million.
Wendell Beckles, who was arrested and charged with arson in 1999, spent nearly eight years in prison after a magistrate formally discharged him on Dec. 18, 2001. The Court of Appeal has now raised his compensation to TT$1.1 million. Justices of Appeal Prakash Moosai, Gillian Lucky and Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell increased his general damages from TT$800,000 to TT$1 million and left a TT$100,000 exemplary award unchanged. The ruling raises a question that the courts themselves have addressed: what is fair payment for years of lost freedom?
The money covers only part of that time. Because lawsuits of this kind carry a four-year limitation period, Beckles could be compensated only for the last four years of his detention, from Sept. 8, 2005, to Sept. 8, 2009. By Aurax’s calculation, TT$1.1 million works out to roughly TT$750 for each day of that compensable period, or about TT$390 a day across the whole detention. Moosai said it was “wholly unrealistic” to assume Beckles’ suffering was confined to the four compensable years. He held that any award should reflect the toll of the earlier period even though no damages could accrue for it. The panel concluded that the earlier general damages award was “inordinately low.”
The figure has moved considerably. The State did not defend the civil claim, and in May 2012 High Court Judge Carol Gobin awarded TT$2.1 million. She said no sum could make up for what Beckles endured, but that the award had to signal that neglect of the rights of people in the State’s care would be treated seriously. After the State appealed the amount, the Court of Appeal sent the case back to Master Patricia Sobion-Awai, who awarded TT$900,000 in total in September 2018. Beckles’ claim for lost income was dismissed for insufficient evidence. His latest appeal, against the Master’s assessment, lifted the award to TT$1.1 million, with the Attorney General’s Office represented by Monica Smith and Laura Persad.
The record shows how the error occurred, though not why. Beckles was committed to stand trial after a preliminary inquiry, and the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office remitted the case to a magistrate to take further evidence. The magistrate discharged him in December 2001, but the decision was never communicated to prison officials, and he stayed on remand until September 2009. He was freed only after attorneys Mark and Vishala Seepersad pursued a writ of habeas corpus. The court treated that as an aggravating feature of the case, with Moosai saying it amplified the “careless incompetence” of the authorities and raised the question of what might have become of Beckles had he not applied.
The claim was brought against the Attorney General, so the award falls on the State rather than on any individual official. It remains unclear how the discharge failed to reach prison officials, whether anyone has been held accountable, or whether the process has since changed. The case also sits against a wider backdrop: Prison Officers’ Association General Secretary Lester Logie said in August 2025 that nearly two-thirds of the prison population is on remand, meaning people awaiting trial who have not been convicted.