Derek Achong

Host of Crime Watch Ian Al­leyne ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate's Court yes­ter­day to an­swer four crim­i­nal charges. As he wait­ed pa­tient­ly for his mat­ter to be called by Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar, hun­dreds of his fans lined St Vin­cent Street, in the hope of catch­ing a glimpse of Al­leyne leav­ing the court. Af­ter a short ap­pear­ance be­fore Ay­ers-Cae­sar, Al­leyne was grant­ed $80,000 bail to cov­er all four charges.

In less than 30 min­utes af­ter the mat­ter was ad­journed, Al­leyne's bail bond was ap­proved by a Clerk of the Peace II and he was al­lowed to leave the cour­t­house to greet his fans. Ay­ers-Cae­sar read three charges un­der sec­tion 32 (2) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act. It is al­leged that on Oc­to­ber 25 and 26 last year, Al­leyne broad­cast a video on tele­vi­sion sta­tion TV6 three times, dur­ing which a rape vic­tim's iden­ti­ty was re­leased to the pub­lic.

He was al­so charged with re­sist­ing ASP Ajith Per­sad in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties, stem­ming from an in­ci­dent last Thurs­day evening at the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN), In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain com­pound. He de­nied all four charges. CCN is the par­ent com­pa­ny of TV6. CCN al­so faces three charges un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act and three charges each for breach of its broad­cast­er's li­cence and con­ces­sion un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act.

While mak­ing a bail ap­pli­ca­tion, Al­leyne's at­tor­ney Om Lal­la raised the is­sue of his client's ar­rest and de­ten­tion by po­lice. CCN was is­sued sum­mons­es to ap­pear in court to face the nine charges, while Al­leyne was ar­rest­ed and kept at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, Port-of-Spain for one night, Lal­la not­ed.

Be­fore ad­journ­ing the mat­ter, Ay­ers-Cae­sar sum­moned se­nior of­fi­cers of the Court and Process Branch to an­swer ques­tions in open court about an al­leged breach in pro­ce­dure which oc­curred while they were deal­ing with Al­leyne. Al­leyne will reap­pear in court on May 14, to­geth­er with ex­ec­u­tives of CCN, who are ex­pect­ed to make their first ap­pear­ance.