An­na-Lisa Paul

The met­tle of of­fi­cers at­tached to the Court and Process Branch was not test­ed yes­ter­day when tele­vi­sion host Ian Al­leyne reap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court. Un­like his last ap­pear­ance, on April 24, when he was ac­com­pa­nied by a large crowd of sup­port­ers out­side the court house on St Vin­cent Street, Al­leyne and his at­tor­ney Om Lal­la ar­rived at 8.45 am yes­ter­day and were greet­ed by a hand­ful of peo­ple. Al­leyne shook a woman's hand be­fore en­ter­ing the court house, and ap­peared som­bre as he wait­ed for the mat­ter to be called be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar in the Eighth Mag­is­trates' Court. Al­leyne is fac­ing three charges un­der Sec­tion 32 (2) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which makes it an of­fence to re­veal the iden­ti­ty of a rape vic­tim.

The charges stem from a video de­pict­ing the rape of a 13-year-old which was al­leged­ly aired three times on tele­vi­sion sta­tion TV6 in Oc­to­ber last year. Al­leyne al­so faces an ad­di­tion­al charge of re­sist­ing ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer ASP Ajith Per­sad in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties. Al­leyne has de­nied all the charges and was grant­ed $80,000 bail by Mag­is­trate Ay­ers-Cae­sar. Sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN), the par­ent com­pa­ny of TV6, which airs Al­leyne's night­ly Crime Watch pro­gramme were al­so ex­pect­ed to at­tend court yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, when the mat­ter was called at 9.30 am, de­fence at­tor­ney Sophia Chote in­formed the court via let­ter that the CCN ex­ec­u­tives had elect­ed to be rep­re­sent­ed by le­gal coun­sel.