Government to pay Fullerton
Published:Sunday | March 27, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The government has been ordered to pay $1.8 million in damages to Nicole Ann Fullerton, former acting operations manager of the failed Caldon Merchant Bank, for false arrest and breaches of her constitutional rights.
Supreme Court Judge Paulette Williams made the order yesterday. The attorney general did not contest the suit, and so it was set for assessment of damages.
Fullerton sued the attorney general after the police had detained her for some time at the airport when she was about to leave the island. She also sued because she was detained by the police for processing after the Court of Appeal freed her in 2009 of a fraud charge.
Principle established
Jacqueline Samuels Brown, QC, who represented Fullerton, said she and her client "were very happy that the principle has been established that will provide guidance for the future to organs of the State as to how they should proceed without trespassing on a person's liberty". Samuels Brown described the judgment as timely, bearing in mind Parliament's recent passing of the Fundamental Rights and Freedom Bill. She said they were somewhat disappointed with the amount awarded.
Fullerton was freed by the Court of Appeal in June 2009 of defrauding businessman Colin Karjohn of $15 million.
Karjohn claimed that he had given Fullerton the money in 1998 to invest in Treasury Bills, but it was instead invested in the failed bank.
The Court of Appeal found otherwise and quashed Fullerton's conviction and set aside her 12-month prison sentence. The court said she was not acting in her personal capacity when she invested the money.