Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard is ex­pect­ed to de­cide whether crim­i­nal charges should be laid against the con­trac­tor who al­leged­ly threat­ened and ha­rassed Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) boss Jear­lean John af­ter he failed to se­cure a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­tract. In­ves­ti­ga­tors prob­ing the case head­ed by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son re­cent­ly hand­ed over a file con­tain­ing sev­er­al e-mails sent to John from the con­trac­tor to the DPP. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Gas­pard con­firmed to the T&T Guardian that he was cur­rent­ly re­view­ing the file.

"I am in pos­ses­sion of the file and I am re­view­ing it with a view to de­cid­ing whether charges are to be laid against the in­di­vid­ual," he said. "At this point I have not made a de­ci­sion on the case as yet...I am still re­view­ing the ev­i­dence." The DPP, T&T Guardian learnt, asked for a le­gal opin­ion based on the ev­i­dence pro­duced to as­sist with ar­riv­ing at a de­ci­sion. Le­gal sources said based on the ev­i­dence, the sus­pect, who po­lice be­lieved to be an ag­griev­ed con­trac­tor, could be charged un­der The Of­fences Against the Per­son Act No 11 of 2005.

Sec­tion 30 A1 of the Act states: (a) Ha­rass­ment of a per­son in­cludes alarm­ing the per­son or caus­ing the per­son dis­tress by en­gag­ing in a course of con­duct such as-mak­ing con­tact with the per­son whether by ges­ture, di­rect­ly, ver­bal­ly by tele­phone, com­put­er, post or in any oth­er way. Course of con­duct is de­fined as in­volv­ing con­duct of the kind re­ferred to car­ried out on at least two oc­ca­sions. Sub sec­tion (2) of the Act fur­ther states: A per­son who pur­sues a course of con­duct which amounts to ha­rass­ment of an­oth­er in which he knows or ought rea­son­ably to know amounts to ha­rass­ment to the oth­er is guilty to an of­fence and li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $2,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for six months.

Up to Thurs­day, the sus­pect con­tin­ued send­ing e-mails to John, who is al­so the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, vent­ing his anger. Po­lice said their in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that the sus­pect be­came up­set be­cause he had been un­able to se­cure con­tracts at the state-owned en­ter­prise. The sus­pect boast­ed of hav­ing a back­ground in con­struc­tion and in­sist­ed that he could be in­stru­men­tal in turn­ing around Ude­cott and im­ple­ment­ing the UFF rec­om­men­da­tions. The sus­pect, po­lice said, had threat­ened a "back­lash" for al­low­ing John to head the mega state en­ter­prise. He claimed to know "every move" of the Ude­cott boss.

The sus­pect al­so in­di­cat­ed in an e-mail that there would be "con­se­quences" for keep­ing John in the top po­si­tion. T&T Guardian learnt that the sus­pect might be get­ting help from Ude­cott in­sid­ers as con­fi­den­tial de­tails dis­cussed in meet­ings had al­so been dis­closed in e-mails sent to John. John's daugh­ter, at­tor­ney Aisha Ser­rette-Dais­ley, has al­so come un­der at­tack by the sus­pect who is­sued claims of an al­leged con­flict of in­ter­est due to her job at a law firm re­tained by the State-owned en­ter­prise. John, who on­ly last week learnt via the me­dia that she was be­ing probed, wrote to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion ear­li­er this year in­form­ing them of the mat­ter in­volv­ing her daugh­ter.

The com­mis­sion replied days lat­er, in­form­ing John that the con­cern raised did not war­rant its at­ten­tion. The Ude­cott head al­so wrote to the law firm on May 16, de­clar­ing that the state-owned en­ter­prise re­tained at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen as the sole at­tor­ney in a mat­ter, out­lin­ing that un­der "no cir­cum­stances" le­gal fees would be paid oth­er­wise. John has since wel­comed the probe, call­ing for a speedy res­o­lu­tion in­to the is­sue.