Derek Achong

Tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty and Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne was last night ar­rest­ed out­side the In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, of­fices of Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN). The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that Al­leyne's ar­rest stemmed from broad­casts on his show on Oc­to­ber 25 and 26 last year, dur­ing which the bru­tal rape of a 13-year-old men­tal­ly-dis­abled girl was al­leged­ly aired. Se­nior po­lice sources re­vealed that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard was con­tact­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors late Wednes­day evening for ad­vice on pos­si­ble crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion against Al­leyne. Up to late yes­ter­day, it could not be con­firmed if charges were laid against Al­leyne, but the Guardian un­der­stands that Gas­pard ad­vised that three charges un­der Sec­tion 32 (2) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act be laid.

The leg­is­la­tion states: "A per­son who pub­lish­es or broad­casts any mat­ter con­trary to sub­sec­tion 1 is guilty of an of­fence and li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of twen­ty-five thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for five years." The Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­sid­er­ing lay­ing sim­i­lar charges on a se­nior mem­ber of staff at CCN in re­la­tion to the same broad­casts. Short­ly be­fore 7 pm yes­ter­day, a five-mem­ber team of of­fi­cers as­signed to the Port-of-Spain Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID), and led by ASP Ajith Per­sad, ap­proached se­cu­ri­ty at the back gate of the Ex­press House of­fices of CCN. With­in min­utes of the po­lice's ar­rival, Al­leyne who was on air at the time, in­formed view­ers of the po­lice pres­ence and in­ten­tion to ar­rest him. Scores of bois­ter­ous fans blocked the gates of the com­pound while scream­ing out the con­tro­ver­sial tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty's name.

Se­nior man­age­ment at CCN soon en­tered the com­pa­ny's car park to catch a glimpse of the noisy crowd. Al­leyne's at­tor­neys Om Lal­la and Der­rick Bal­li­ram ar­rived soon af­ter and were seen en­ter­ing the build­ing. Even as it be­gan to rain heav­i­ly, Al­leyne's sup­port­ers stood out­side the gates chant­i­ng his name. Af­ter a short press con­fer­ence, ASP Per­sad and Cpl An­dre Lopez en­tered the com­pound and at­tempt­ed to de­tain a re­sis­tant Al­leyne. He con­tin­u­ous­ly plead­ed with the of­fi­cers to not ar­rest him while ask­ing the rea­sons for their ac­tions. The of­fi­cers then had a short con­ver­sa­tion with Al­leyne and his at­tor­neys be­fore hand­cuffs were placed on his wrists, and he was led away to an await­ing po­lice car. Al­leyne was tak­en to Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion on St Vin­cent Street where he re­mained with his lawyers up to late last night, se­nior po­lice sources said. He is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate this morn­ing to face the charges.