Last week it was the former Deputy Prime Minister Hugo Patt who was awarded 145 thousand dollars in damages from the government after he was unfairly maligned by the Marshalleck Commission of Inquiry into the sale of government assets.

Today, the judgement came down for his former boss, Dean Barrow. The court awarded him a whopping 185 thousand dollars in damages. And while it is a whole lot - it's nowhere near the almost half a million dollars in damages which Barrow's attorney, Naima Barrow was asking for. She was also asking that the entire report be stricken but Justice Lisa Shoman agreed with the attorney for the Commission Godfrey Smith that there was no bias.

That was a save for the government, but still, she awarded the former PM almost 200 thousand dollars in damages. Today at his office he told Courtney Menzies he was very satisfied, and that he hoped the government had learned a lesson - one that he accepts will end up costing taxpayers.

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"I am very pleased. I am certainly happy with the quantum of damages that I was awarded."

Reporter
"You initially wanted $500,000, were you disappointed?"

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"No not at all, because $500,000 was never a serious bid. You know how it is, you look at a range of awards in comparable circumstances and so we threw a figure out there, but there was never any real chance of getting anything near that amount. The bottom line is what has been given is absolutely fair. Ofcourse, every adverse reference to me is quashed, but the rest of the report remains."

Reporter
"Some would say at the end of the day it's the public that loses, because now I believe the bill is over $300,000. It's the public that has to pay that."

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"Well, the public losses and gains. The public gains because the public can now feel confident that any further commissions of inquiry will well know how not to do things - will be in fact constrained to do things properly, so that's a benefit. Ofcourse the public losses by the tax payers having to foot the bill for the damages. Hopefully, the government, the current administration has learnt its lesson. It is to blame for this bill to the tax payers, because its cocked-up things and so if it is as I suspect the government's objective was always more to pursue a political vendetta against persons such as myself and Hon. Patt. Then they've been taught a lesson."

"When you launched these commissions of inquiries, you must do so for the right reasons. The lessons learnt by the current administration and by the society at large is that next time do it the right way."

Reporter
"Yesterday when we spoke to the Prime Minister, he sort of downplayed it, he said that the government lost because of a - he called it a technicality and he said that the judgement doesn't prove innocence on the part of yourself and Mr. Pott, it just shows that there was a technical error."

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"You know I am really surprised, I don't say this with any pleasure, because he is the Prime Minister of this country, but that is a degree of ignorance and shallowness that I find altogether disappointing. How can you describe what the court confirmed and what your two senior counsels had to concede, how can you describe the absolutely fundamental naked, serial violations of people's constitutional rights, how can you describe that as a technicality? Thats monumentally ignorant on his part and shows him to great disadvantage. Look, you have lost because you've cocked it up and because you had bad faith. That is what the court found. Don't try to paper that over. Just concede that you made terrible mistakes, he is either a fool or a naive. He is either a fool for not understanding the gravity of what has happened or he is a naive for understanding it, but trying to dismiss it and cast it aside."

The parts of the report dealing with both Barrow and Patt will now be redacted. 50% of costs were awarded.

Channel 7