Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly deputy chief sec­re­tary Wat­son Duke has been com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for a set of crim­i­nal charges re­lat­ed to the al­leged rape and in­de­cent as­sault of a for­mer sub­or­di­nate.

The cur­rent THA mem­ber for Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle was com­mit­ted by Mag­is­trate Marisa Gomez at the end of his pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry on Tues­day.

Duke was grant­ed $250,000 bail to cov­er all the charges, which he re­port­ed­ly ac­cessed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the hear­ing.

He will now have to await a tri­al in the High Court, which can take well over five years con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent back­log of cas­es in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Duke is ac­cused of al­leged­ly com­mit­ting acts of se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy against a woman, a then em­ploy­ee of the union, on four oc­ca­sions be­tween Jan­u­ary and April 2016 at the union’s head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.

He is al­so ac­cused of hav­ing sex­u­al in­ter­course with the woman against her will on May 10, 2016, at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel.

When he was charged over sev­en years ago, Duke ve­he­ment­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

This is yet an­oth­er mat­ter in which Duke will have to de­fend him­self be­fore the lo­cal courts.

In 2021, Duke was con­vict­ed of mak­ing a false fire re­port and was fined $1,200.

The charge re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2017, when Duke tripped a fire alarm at the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fice at Hol­lis Av­enue, Ari­ma, dur­ing a protest ac­tion.

In June, Duke’s ap­peal against his con­vic­tion and sen­tence, which was the max­i­mum penal­ty un­der the Fire Ser­vices Act, was dis­missed.

The out­come of the ap­peal was not based on the mer­its of the case but rather due to his fail­ure to at­tend a court hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain.

In 2020, Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle al­so dis­missed a sedi­tion charge against Duke.

The move was based on a de­ci­sion of High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad to strike out as­pects of the Sedi­tion Act that he ruled were un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, in a case brought by for­mer Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Sat Ma­haraj.

Ap­peals against Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s judg­ment were up­held by the Court of Ap­peal, and lat­er the Privy Coun­cil ear­li­er this year.

The sedi­tion charge against Duke re­lat­ed to state­ments on pro­posed lay-offs at State-owned util­i­ty com­pa­nies, which he made in a me­dia con­fer­ence on No­vem­ber 16, 2018.

Duke was rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and John Heath, SC, while As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Danielle Thomp­son rep­re­sent­ed the State.