A Supreme Court judge in The Bahamas has ruled in favour of Jamaican Matthew Sewell after years of a legal battle with the government over his false imprisonment.
Eyewitness News in the Bahamas is reporting that Justice Ruth Bowe-Darville on Monday struck out the defence filed by the government respondents and upheld submissions made by Sewell in his application.
It is reported that the Jamaican was first arrested in June 2006 at age 18 after being accused of raping a six-year-old girl.
At the time, he was reportedly granted a stay of three weeks in the country to visit his father.
He was subsequently arrested five more times on different charges and detained at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre on the grounds that he was in the country illegally.
For more than nine years, he was reportedly imprisoned and detained on and off without facing a hearing on charges of sexual assault, housebreaking and murder.
Sewell is reportedly suing the government for damages pertaining to false imprisonment, assault and battery, malicious prosecution, arbitrary and unlawful detention, and breaches of his fundamental rights under the Constitution.
He is asking the court to be awarded $27,533,700 along with special damages.
The court is expected to hear submissions on the matter on October 28.
Sewell’s attorney, Fred Smith, QC, reportedly described the ruling as “vindication” for his client.
“It’s very disconcerting as a human rights advocate and as a lawyer who believes in the rule of law and fights for that for every person in The Bahamas, that despite dozens and dozens of rulings by the Supreme Court, the executive branch of government continues to make the same mistakes,” Smith was quoted as saying by Eyewitness News.
Smith reportedly indicated that over the nine years and nine months in and out of jail, courts, and the detention centre, Sewell has had his eye nearly gouged out with a pen, his nose broken, and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from the conditions in which he was held.
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