Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) deputy chief sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke has lost the ap­peal over his con­vic­tion and sen­tence for mak­ing a false fire re­port in 2017.

Duke’s ap­peal was dis­missed by Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon and Gre­go­ry Smith dur­ing a hy­brid hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

The ap­peal pan­el’s de­ci­sion was not based on the mer­its of Duke’s ap­peal but rather due to his fail­ure to at­tend Tues­day’s hear­ing in per­son.

Duke, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), was not present when the case was first called by the pan­el around 9.30 am.

The case was stood down as the pan­el dealt with the oth­er cas­es be­fore it to give Duke time to at­tend.

Around mid­day, Duke joined the video con­fer­enc­ing link for the hear­ing.

Al­though Duke at­tempt­ed to ad­dress the pan­el, he was stopped by Jus­tice Yorke-Soo Hon, who ad­vised him that he had to be phys­i­cal­ly present in court.

“It is his ap­peal and he ought to be here by 9.30. He was not here and the court dealt with it ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. We are not will­ing to hear you vir­tu­al­ly,” Jus­tice Yorke-Soo Hon said.

At­tor­ney Roshan To­ta-Ma­haraj ap­peared am­i­cus cu­ri­ae (as a friend of the court) and asked the pan­el to give Duke an op­por­tu­ni­ty to park his car and make his way to the court­room.

How­ev­er, the pan­el com­plet­ed its cas­es and the hear­ing was ad­journed be­fore Duke ar­rived.

Tues­day’s dis­missal of the ap­peal does not mean that Duke can no longer chal­lenge his con­vic­tion and sen­tence as he must now go through the process of re­fil­ing the ap­peal if he still in­tends to pur­sue it.

In his ap­peal, Duke was chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion by Mag­is­trate Avion Gill to con­vict and fine him $1,200.

In pass­ing the sen­tence on Duke, in March 2021, Mag­is­trate Gill said that he was of pre­vi­ous good char­ac­ter but not­ed that the of­fence was se­ri­ous as it po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ed the State’s re­sources.

Mag­is­trate Gill im­posed the high­est fine pos­si­ble for the of­fence but did not ap­ply the as­so­ci­at­ed three month prison term be­cause of his good char­ac­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to the charge, Duke was ac­cused of trip­ping a fire alarm at the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fice at Hol­lis Av­enue, Ari­ma, dur­ing a protest ac­tion on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2017.

Un­der the Fire Ser­vices Act, the of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $1,200 fine and three months im­pris­on­ment.

Af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed and sen­tenced, Duke took to so­cial me­dia to main­tain his in­no­cence and sig­nal his in­ten­tion to ap­peal.

“When an in­no­cent man does no wrong, who can­not be con­vict­ed based on the facts put be­fore the court, could be deemed guilty and forced to pay a $1,200 fine, it is a dark day for jus­tice,” Duke said.

While Duke claimed he was con­fi­dent that he would be even­tu­al­ly ac­quit­ted by the Court of Ap­peal, he sug­gest­ed that he was still will­ing to take the case fur­ther.

“If we are not sat­is­fied there we will go all the way to the Privy Coun­cil, where the Law Lords are still not both­ered by the pol­i­tics in our coun­try and will rule in our favour,” Duke said.

The State was rep­re­sent­ed by As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal.