FREE AT LAST

ONE day after a High Court Judge ruled that they were illegally serving extra prison terms, six men  who collectively were imprisoned for an additional 12 years, tasted freedom at 5.55 pm yesterday, when they walked out of the State Prison on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain.

However, for Maurice Haydes, David Pysadee, Marlon Charles, Edwin Augustine, Garvin Taylor and Steve Yorke, freedom was a bitter-sweet affair. Bitter because when they walked out of the prisons, none of their relatives or friends were waiting to greet them. Sweet because they were now free men.

Charles served an additional five years behind bars, Haydes served three months extra, Pysadee spent four extra years, Augustine served ten additional months, Taylor spent one year extra and Yorke was behind bars for an additional 12 months, making it a total of 12 years and one month that the six served as extra and illegal prison terms. “It real good to be free. The State has done me a grave injustice and I leave everything in the hands of my lawyers. Right now I just want to go home to my family,” stated Marlon Charles who had served the longest additional term of the six. “You do not know how jail is like nah. I intend never to go back, and now I just hope that society can give me a chance to get my life back, since I served out my punishment and even had to do extra time,” stated Edwin Augustine.

Ex-prisoner Steve Yorke also gave thanks to the Almighty for keeping him alive while he was in prison. The State could very well be ordered to pay  millions of dollars in compensation, since the six men have already instructed their attorneys to file motions for compensation for unlawful detention by the State, sources said yesterday. As of yesterday, two of the motions were prepared and are ready for the courts. On Thursday, Justice Peter Jamadar ordered the six to be freed immediately after he found that they were illegally serving extra time behind bars. The orders were made on six Habeas Corpus motions filed in the First Civil Court, San Fernando and argued by attorneys Brian Debideen and Prakash Ramadhar.

Yesterday at 4 pm, Ramadhar, Debideen and British-called Barrister Vish Rambarran, arrived at the State Prisons with the High Court Orders for the release of the six prisoners. Just shy of two hours later, the six prisoners all with broad smiles on their faces, walked out of the prison. Haydes had been  jailed for attempted robbery and possession of arms and ammunition, Pysadee had been imprisoned for armed robbery, Charles for house breaking and larceny and Yorke was jailed for larceny. The other two convicts did not say what they had been imprisoned for. After shaking hands with their lawyers and speaking to the media, the six men quickly walked up Frederick Street, with some of them asking motorists where the Chaguanas and St James taxi-stands were now located.

Their attorneys successfully argued that magistrates ordered the six prisoners to serve separate jail terms to run consecutively instead of concurrently. But the various aggregate jail terms in the case of each of the six, totalled more than the maximum jail sentence which the law allows. But consecutive sentences, the attorneys argued, cannot exceed three years according to a ruling by former Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide on the issue. De la Bastide cited Section 72 of the Summary Courts Ordinance, which stated:  “Where two or more sentences are passed by a magistrate by a summary court and are ordered to run consecutively, the aggregate term of imprisonment shall not exceed three years.”

Attorney Prakash Jamadar told Newsday now that the public was sensitised to the issue, he was sure that persons responsible for the passing of sentences on prisoners, would be more careful. “Now that the media has highlighted this issue so prominently, I anticipate that all magistrates would be more careful in handing down sentences,” Jamadhar said. He disclosed that 27 prisoners, who had been serving illegal additional sentences, had been freed after Habeas Corpus motions were successfully argued.