Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Se­nior Mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne promised yes­ter­day to ex­clude jour­nal­ists from her court­room if any breach­es of the Pre­lim­i­nary En­quiry Act were made dur­ing the cov­er­age of the mur­der in­quiry in which six po­lice of­fi­cers are charged with mur­der.

Quin­tyne, pre­sid­ing in the Princes Town First?Court, is­sued the warn­ing af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger?Gas­pard point­ed out that a News­day ar­ti­cle, pub­lished ear­li­er this month, con­tained ev­i­dence from the last hear­ing of the in­quiry.

Act­ing Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and Con­sta­bles Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man and An­to­nio Ra­madin are ac­cused of killing friends Abi­gail John­son, Al­lana Dun­can and Ker­ron "Fin­gers" Ec­cles last year. Gas­pard, who is lead­ing the pros­e­cu­tion's team with Gilbert?Pe­ter­son?SC and Eileen Greene, said: "That type of prac­tice can­not be coun­te­nance. The act clear­ly in­di­cates what is the re­mit, am­bit and scope of re­port­ing in these pro­ceed­ings."

She told Gas­pard it was with­in his re­mit to take ac­tion. "I will take the nec­es­sary ac­tion," he said. How­ev­er, he asked Quin­tyne to read to jour­nal­ists the sec­tion of the act which re­lat­ed to pub­li­ca­tion of pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries. The mag­is­trate read in its en­tire­ty Sec­tion 41 (1-3) of the act which pro­hib­it­ed the pub­li­ca­tion of ev­i­dence in pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries. The penal­ties for breach­ing the act, she said, were a fine of $2,000 or im­pris­on­ment for four months.

Quin­tyne, who looked di­rect­ly at jour­nal­ists seat­ed in court yes­ter­day, said: "The law is very, very clear and very sim­ple. I call up­on you to cease and de­sist. There are two con­se­quences that could fol­low, un­der the law or peo­ple who breach (the Act) will be ex­clud­ed from the pro­ceed­ings. It is as sim­ple as that."

She said she al­ready had to re­mind jour­nal­ists dur­ing the mat­ter of their oblig­a­tions un­der the law af­ter con­cerns were raised. Quin­tyne did not lim­it her warn­ing to jour­nal­ists, as she said: "Those who may record ev­i­dence and com­ment on it, blog­gers and on Face­book, these are con­sid­ered to be forms of pub­li­ca­tion. Please re­frain from do­ing so."

She said should there be any fur­ther in­frac­tions of the Act she will put out in­di­vid­u­als from court. The six of­fi­cers, who were part of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Rob­bery Squad, are ac­cused of killing the trio at Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore on the night of Ju­ly 22, 2011. The mat­ter will re­sume on?De­cem­ber 5.