Host of TV6 Crime Watch pro­gramme Ian Al­leyne has urged view­ers to call the sta­tion and show their sup­port fol­low­ing the sus­pen­sion of the con­tro­ver­sial talk show by Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work Lim­it­ed (CCN).In a news re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, CCN's chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Shi­da Bo­lai an­nounced that in light of re­cent com­plaints made against the pro­gramme, a full re­view in­to all as­pects of the show had been launched.

The re­lease said CCN TV6 "val­ued their rep­u­ta­tion for cred­i­bil­i­ty, ad­her­ence to the high­est stan­dards of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."The sta­tion has agreed to sus­pend the pro­gramme un­til fur­ther no­tice and wished to thank the pub­lic and ad­ver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port."How­ev­er, in a post on his Face­book page yes­ter­day, Al­leyne blamed com­plaints of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) as well as "sev­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic" for the show's sus­pen­sion.

He said: "I hope they are now hap­py that the poor and op­pressed will now be de­nied truth and jus­tice. I will con­tin­ue to stand for the op­pressed and fight. "At 6 pm no crime watch...call TV6. Stand with me and let your voic­es be heard in sup­port of Crime Watch," he said.The con­dem­na­tion of the show stemmed from a video clip which was aired on Oc­to­ber 25 at 6 pm and 10.30 pm and on Oc­to­ber 26 at 6 pm, show­ing a 13-year-old girl be­ing sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed.

Al­leyne lat­er apol­o­gised for air­ing the video. CCN's de­ci­sion fol­lows calls from var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions and an in­ves­ti­ga­tion launched by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard in­to com­plaints by the TATT that the air­ing of the clip may have been a po­ten­tial breach of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act.Chair­man of the Coali­tion against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, added her voice last week to a grow­ing num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety, Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, all con­demn­ing the air­ing of the clip.In her state­ment Ma­habir-Wy­att had called for ac­tion to be tak­en in what she called a "cru­el trav­es­ty."

The T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) al­so had is­sued a state­ment, say­ing it did not con­done the air­ing of the phone-record­ed video.The state­ment said the TTP­BA did not sup­port the "pro­gram­ming in­ci­dent" and dis­closed that dis­cus­sions had been held with TV6.Cit­i­zens al­so had formed them­selves in­to a Face­book Group called Get Rid of Crime Watch Now.A post on the group's wall de­scribed the sus­pen­sion of the show as a vic­to­ry for de­cen­cy and peo­ple pow­er.The post said: "It was nev­er per­son­al and if the gen­tle­man (Al­leyne) was will­ing to ad­here to the same laws that he high­lights oth­ers for break­ing, we would not be at this place."

Yes­ter­day, Al­leyne vis­it­ed his at­tor­ney Om Lal­la for le­gal ad­vice.In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, Lal­la de­scribed the sus­pen­sion as dis­ap­point­ing.

KALI­FA CLYNE and CAMILLE CLARKE