Bar­ba­dos po­lice have de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to file crim­i­nal charges against three me­dia work­ers in an on­go­ing sec­ondary school sex scan­dal.Three se­nior of­fi­cials of the Bar­ba­dos Na­tion news­pa­per have been charged with show­ing an in­de­cent pho­to­graph of two mi­nors en­gaged in a sex­u­al act. Na­tion pub­lish­er, Vi­vian-Anne Git­tens, as well as the Ed­i­tor-in-Chief Roy Mor­ris and se­nior jour­nal­ist San­ka Price, were placed on BDS$5,000 bail and or­dered to hand over their trav­el doc­u­ments af­ter ap­pear­ing in court on Thurs­day.

Price was the au­thor of the ar­ti­cle which was ac­com­pa­nied by the of­fend­ing pho­to­graph. The mat­ter has been ad­journed to March 11, 2014. The Na­tion News is a sub­sidiary of One Caribbean Me­dia, the par­ent com­pa­ny of the Trinidad Ex­press and CCN TV6.The charges stem from the Oc­to­ber 26 pub­li­ca­tion of an ar­ti­cle head­lined "Sex Scene" and ac­com­pa­ny­ing pho­to­graph based on the Face­book pho­to and cell­phone video of two sec­ondary school stu­dents hav­ing sex in a class­room.

The po­lice are al­leg­ing that the pho­to­graph which ac­com­pa­nied the sto­ry was an in­de­cent pic­ture of two 14-year-olds in vi­o­la­tion of Bar­ba­dos' Pro­tec­tion Of Chil­dren Act.Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Crime) Li­onel M Thomp­son yes­ter­day said that while it is im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge the crit­i­cal role the "press plays in a lib­er­al de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety," the Roy­al Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Force (RBPF) was "legal­ly bound to im­par­tial­ly en­force the crim­i­nal law, al­beit hu­mane­ly."

Thomp­son said that he was con­strained to speak in gen­er­al terms on the case as it is sub ju­dice.How­ev­er, he said the po­lice be­gan "three par­al­lel and si­mul­ta­ne­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions" in­to the sto­ry that was car­ried in the Na­tion news­pa­per."The charg­ing of the three per­sons...rep­re­sents the con­clu­sion of one of the three in­ves­ti­ga­tions," he said, adding that the sec­ond in­ves­ti­ga­tion had re­sult­ed in the charges be­ing laid against the chil­dren.

"The oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains open," said Thomp­son, adding that in con­sid­er­ing the charges against the me­dia work­ers, the po­lice "took full cog­ni­sance of the de­bates on the is­sues as the pub­lic saw them.In pur­su­ing the three in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the RBPF came to the con­clu­sion that there was enough ev­i­dence to sup­port the charges that were brought, he said.He added that the RBPF had sought and fol­lowed the ad­vice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in the mat­ter.

Two teenage boys, aged 16 and 15, who were al­leged­ly re­spon­si­ble for cap­tur­ing the act on film ap­peared in court on a charge of tak­ing an in­de­cent pho­to­graph some­time be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1 and Oc­to­ber 31.They were re­leased on BDS$10,000 bail and placed on a 7.30 pm to 6 am cur­few.