Attorney General Anil Nandlall has defended the Guyana Police Force’s (GPF) action in detaining Deon Jeffrey, the 25-year-old contractor of Parfaite Harmony, West Bank Demerara, who was wrongfully arrested for the alleged abduction of 11-year-old Adriana Younge.
During a conversation with regional podcast Caribbean Tea on Monday, the Attorney General said that law enforcement would have acted “reasonably” given the information they had received at the time when Younge, who was reported missing from the Double Day Hotel in Tuschen on the East Bank of Essequibo, could not be located.
Nandlall said that the initial statement from the police was that Younge had left the premises of the Double Day Hotel in a car. The information was received through the 911 system where the vehicle description and the driver matched the person arrested.
“When you go back to the time when the phone call would have been received and try to fix yourself in the events as they were unfolding, the police I believe, acted reasonably when they sought to act upon that information,” the Attorney General asserted.
He said the police detained the accused person and released him a few hours later.
“Frankly speaking, I don’t know that the police could have acted in any other manner. They had to take that information on board, they had to interrogate the information and apparently when it didn’t yield any further results, they obviously abandoned it.”
The Attorney General is the only named defendant in a civil suit now brought against the state by Jeffrey. Jeffrey is seeking $100M compensation for his wrongful arrest, claiming that the detention caused him public humiliation and resulted in persons refusing to do business with him.
In a statement, the GPF blamed a civilian staff member and a sergeant from the Special Constabulary for the wrongful arrest. They said that the civilian staffer entered incorrect information when examining camera footage around the Double Day Hotel, and stated that someone resembling the missing girl had left the hotel premises.
The sergeant was accused of falsely claiming that while on duty in the Region’s Operation Room, she received a call from an anonymous male informing her that Adriana was seen leaving the hotel and entering a black Raum motorcar. Detectives tracked the call and detained a man who was acquainted with the special constable.
Younge’s body was eventually found in the Double Day swimming pool hours after she had gone missing.
