An­na-Lisa Paul

De­fence lawyer Fitzger­ald Hinds says an at­tempt by his client Ri­car­do Daniel to ex­tort mon­ey from his fa­ther by pre­tend­ing to be kid­napped "is a sor­did, so­cial and spir­i­tu­al prob­lem dressed up in le­gal cloth­ing." Hinds made the com­ment as Daniel reap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael in the Port-of-Spain court yes­ter­day to be sen­tenced for try­ing to ex­tort mon­ey from his fa­ther by pre­tend­ing to be kid­napped. Daniel, 32 of Aroa Av­enue, Trinci­ty, plead­ed guilty to the charge that on Ju­ly 28, at the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, he filed a false po­lice re­port claim­ing he had been kid­napped. He was fined $800. Daniel's co-ac­cused, Den­nis Sta­ple­ton, 32, of Laven­tille, is charged with wast­ing po­lice time on Ju­ly 24.

The charge against him is that he wast­ed po­lice time by caus­ing Daniel's fa­ther, James, to file a false re­port with the AKU that his son had been kid­napped on Ju­ly 24. Sta­ple­ton, who plead­ed not guilty, is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to court on Oc­to­ber 4 for a sep­a­rate hear­ing. At­tor­ney Richard Clarke-Willis is de­fend­ing him. Daniel was ac­com­pa­nied to court yes­ter­day by his par­ents. He sought to com­mu­ni­cate through Hinds that he had brought shame and em­bar­rass­ment to his fam­i­ly. Hinds urged the court to act in a le­nient man­ner and not con­sid­er Daniel's 1999 con­vic­tion for pos­ses­sion of a gun and pos­ses­sion. Hinds said Daniel's fa­ther had al­ready for­giv­en him and had vowed to con­tin­ue his son's em­ploy­ment with­in the fam­i­ly busi­ness. He owns Pro­fes­sion­al's Au­to-Body Garage, Pash­ley Street, Laven­tille.