Former NCB employee loses false imprisonment lawsuit against bank

Former National Commercial Bank (NCB) employee Nadiea Evans has lost her case in the Supreme Court to recover damages from the financial institution for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

Evans claimed that in February 2009, while she was employed as a customer service representative, she was accused of fraud.

A complaint was made to the police's Fraud Squad and she was arrested and charged.

Evans, who was employed at the bank for eight years at the time of her arrest, stated that she was charged with conspiracy to defraud and it was alleged that she conspired with persons unknown to defraud a company of $250,000 by causing money to be paid out to a customer.

She was found not guilty of the charges in August 2011 after the prosecution offered no further evidence against her when she appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

She also sought damages for defamation as she claimed that by reason of the charges, her name was published in a newspaper.

She contended that she was falsely imprisoned by the defendant in the absence of reasonable and probable cause.

She contended that the malicious prosecution caused her serious loss, damage, humiliation, injury to her reputation and was put to considerable expense and embarrassment.

In her witness statement filed on May 18, 2023, she indicated that she acted in accordance with the bank's policies.

Evans filed the suit on May 16 and was also seeking to recover special damages of $10.4 million, which included loss of earnings and continuing.

Attorneys-at-law Anthony Williams and Sharon Usim, who represented the claimant, had cited authorities and argued that the bank did not have reasonable and probable cause to arrest her and damages should be awarded in her favour.

The bank, which was represented by King's Counsel Symone Mayhew and attorney-at-law Leslie-Ann Stewart, contended that the bank had reasonable grounds of suspicion in reporting the matter to the police and imprisonment was done at the discretion of the police.

After hearing legal arguments in the matter, Justice Kirk Anderson said he found that the claimant had not proven that the defendant falsely imprisoned her nor maliciously prosecuted her.

The judge ruled this month that the claimant was lawfully imprisoned by the police who had reasonable and probable cause to so act.

“I am also of the view that the prosecution was conducted in the absence of malice and that it was lawfully conducted, albeit that the criminal case against the claimant was eventually dismissed for want of prosecution,” the judge ruled.

The claimant was ordered to pay the defendant's legal costs.

- Barbara Gayle

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