Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
SUPREME COURT Judge, Paulette Williams has ordered the Government to pay $300,000 with interest to a woman who was strip-searched at the Central Police Station seven years ago.
The claimant, 50-year-old businesswoman Etta Robinson of 11 Belvedere Road, Kingston 19, had sued the Attorney-General and Woman Constable Carla Bucknor to recover damages for assault and battery.
Attorney-at-law Bert Samuels, who represented Ms. Robinson, asked the judge to make a substantial award for the wrong done to the claimant.
Ms. Robinson outlined in her affidavit that, on May 16, 1998, she went to King Street, downtown Kingston to buy a drink. As she left the store, a man accused her of stealing $3,000 from a woman. A crowd gathered and she was beaten and searched, but she only had $300 with her.
ASSAULT CONTINUES
She went to the police station to report the matter and, when she reached the gate, she saw some women and one of them pointed at her and said, "See her deh officer."
Ms. Robinson said Woman Constable Bucknor told her to "shut up her mouth" when she told her that one of the women tried to rob her.
Woman Constable Bucknor took her into a room, put on a pair of gloves, and told her to take off her clothes. Ms. Robinson said that, after the ordeal ended, she was ordered to put her clothes on and sit on a bench. She was eventually told to go home. "Every time I relive the incident I feel bad and ashamed and it has made me have bad feelings towards the police," Ms. Robinson said, arguing that the false report was handled unprofessionally by the police.
Woman Constable Bucknor denied strip-searching Ms. Robinson. She said she only frisked the complainant's bosom and waist.
Ms. Robinson was awarded general damages of $300,000 with interest at the rate of four per cent from March 9, 2000 to June 28, 2006.
