A WOMAN who was assaulted by a police officer outside a Woodbrook nightclub and subsequently prosecuted for two years has been awarded more than $103,000 in damages after the High Court found that the officer had “concocted a case” against her.Justice Margaret Mohammed, in a judgment delivered last Friday, ruled in favour of Andrea Phillips, who was working as a bouncer at the Stumblin’ Night Club on Ariapita Avenue, Port of Spain when she got into an argument with PC Nicholas Holder over a $60 cover charge.Phillips sued the Office of the Attorney General for assault, wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.Justice Mohammed found that Holder and WPC Thomas-Bentham did not identify themselves as police officers when they approached the club’s entrance shortly before midnight on June 30, 2017.The judge accepted Phillips’ evidence that she repeatedly told Holder he had to pay the cover charge before entering. When he attempted to get into the club without paying, Phillips blocked him.Justice Mohammed found that Holder “approached the claimant aggressively”, which constituted an assault, and that Phillips responded by pushing him. The judge also accepted the evidence of security manager Derick Timothy, who was only three to four feet away from the incident and testified that Holder struck Phillips twice in the face.Justice Mohammed described Timothy as a credible witness.‘Not a witness of truth’ The judge found that several aspects of Holder’s evidence were undermined during cross-examination and by police station diary extracts.The judge said Holder “was not a witness of truth”, noting that he failed to call other police officers to corroborate his version of events and did not produce medical evidence to support his claim that he suffered a fractured jaw.Justice Mohammed found that Phillips was arrested at the Woodbrook Police Station, rather than at the club, and that Holder had failed to establish reasonable and probable cause for the arrest.She also ruled that Holder had no reasonable and probable cause to charge Phillips with obstruction, resisting arrest or using obscene language.The charges were dismissed in July 2019 after Holder failed to appear in court on several occasions.Justice Mohammed said there was a sufficient basis to infer malice from Holder’s lack of reasonable and probable cause “in light of the Court’s findings of the conduct of PC Holder at the entrance at the Club; the failure by PC Holder to inform the claimant of the specific reason she was arrested; and the manner in which the claimant was arrested and charged.”The judge found that Phillips was held for approximately 38 hours and was subjected to “inhumane conditions” in a police cell.She awarded Phillips $83,000 in general damages, including an uplift for aggravated damages, and $20,000 in exemplary damages.Justice Mohammed also ordered the State to pay Phillips’ legal costs in the sum of $24,450.