A lawsuit by WPC Nicole Clement over the removal of a security detail at the safe house she was in while in the Justice Protection Programme in 2022 has been thrown out.
On Wednesday, her lawsuit was thrown out by Justice Frank Seepersad. Clement did not appear for the virtual hearing, although she did last week when she said she still wanted to pursue it.
Clement was the State’s main witness in the murder trial against the six police officers charged with the 2011 murder of three Moruga friends. On Friday, those six officers were acquitted by a Port of Spain jury.
Clement was one of the officers also charged with the murders of Abigail Johnson, 23, Alana Duncan, 28, and Kerron “Fingers” Eccles.
However, the three murder charges against her were discontinued in 2012 after the Director of Public Prosecutions gave her immunity to turn state witness and testify against the six. During the trial at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain, Clement refused to testify and was deemed a “hostile witness” by the judge.
In November 2022, Clement was forced to go to court for an injunction to get a security detail reinstated at a safe house after being left without protection for over a week.
She had been in protective custody for over a decade before she left the programme in April.
At the murder trial in the High Court, she admitted she was no longer in protective custody but claimed she was “forced out.”
“I won’t say I voluntarily left. I was forced out because of the actions or inactions of persons in the Justice Protection Programme.”
In her 2022 lawsuit, Clement said the security detail at the safe house where she had been for the past 11 years was removed on November 18, 2022. She complained there had been threats to her life, and the police had not been investigating them.
In the application, she said no reason was given for the security detail's removal, and she had been left to fend for herself.
She also said although another judge granted an injunction on November 25, 2022, for the immediate reinstatement of a security detail, it was only a day later that officers returned.
“My security detail was reinstated almost 24 hours after the respondents were served with the court’s interim injunction order mandating the immediate reinstatement of same.
“It is evident that the respondents continue to flout their duties owed in law, which forms the basis of my application for leave before this court.”
She was seeking permission for the court to review the decisions of the police commissioner and the Minister of National Security over their alleged failure to abide by their duties under the Justice Protection Act.
On Wednesday, Seepersad said the concerns she raised were no longer relevant since she left the programme and the trial had ended.
He also said the relief she was seeking was now academic since the alleged “threat” that accompanied her circumstances as a witness had been removed and there was no issue of there being a retrial of the murder case given the jury’s acquittal.
Seepersad wa
