Kevon Felmine

San Fer­nan­do mag­is­trate Na­tal­ie Diop yes­ter­day chid­ed po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in the as­sault case against so­ca star Rod­ney Le Blanc (Ben­jai).She did so af­ter the po­lice took a wit­ness to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion even though he had to give ev­i­dence in court.Con­sta­ble Valen­tine East­man walked in­to the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court 45 min­utes af­ter he had been sched­uled for cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by de­fence lawyer Shali­ni Khan.

East­man, who was grilled by Khan dur­ing the morn­ing ses­sion, was es­cort­ed to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion by two of­fi­cers dur­ing the lunch break to as­sist de­tec­tives in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.He was to re­turn at 1.15 pm but showed up at 2 pm.Le Blanc, 35, of Ari­ma, is charged with as­sault­ing East­man by spit­ting on him while be­ing ar­rest­ed at a con­cert at San Fer­nan­do Hill on De­cem­ber 18, 2010. There was no fur­ther cross-ex­am­i­na­tion be­cause Khan had oth­er com­mit­ments. The mat­ter was ad­journed to April 15.

Le­gal ad­vis­er to South­ern Di­vi­sion Po­lice, Ram­dath Phillip, sub­se­quent­ly turned up at the court and ex­plained there had been a mis-com­mu­ni­ca­tion which led po­lice to be­lieve the mat­ter had been ad­journed.Apol­o­gis­ing to the court, he said East­man was a wit­ness in an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and was as­sist­ing po­lice at the time.

How­ev­er, Diop de­scribed Phillip's ex­plan­ta­tion as bizarre and ques­tioned how the po­lice could have be­lieved the mat­ter was post­poned when an ad­journ­ment date had not been giv­en.Diop said: "The au­thor­i­ty of the court must be re­spect­ed when the court is in ses­sion."She said she was quite dis­turbed that East­man was late for court when he was sup­posed to give ev­i­dence. She al­so ex­pressed con­cern over his abil­i­ty to give ev­i­dence af­ter he was tak­en to the sta­tion.