Busi­ness­man Adri­an Scoon is yet to be charged in con­nec­tion with the Box­ing Day brunch par­ty that was held on his boat, the Ocean Pel­i­can. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Scoon is to be charged by Sum­mons. Scoon is the son of Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon.

Scoon was on­ly in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary pri­or to which the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) gave the as­sur­ance that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the MV Ocean Pel­i­can’s Box­ing Day event are on­go­ing. The team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing along with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard SC and his team.

Ear­li­er this year, DCP Wen­dell Williams and his in­ves­tiga­tive team were at the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) on Jan­u­ary 4, how­ev­er, since then the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ued as there were still pend­ing work to be done.

On Jan­u­ary 3, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had called on the TTPS to in­clude four se­nior Cab­i­net mem­bers in the probe, and for their cel­lu­lar phones to be seized. These af­ter there were al­le­ga­tions of in­ter­fer­ence by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on the night of the sail­ing as well as per­mis­sions grant­ed by oth­er Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters for the event to take place.

On Box­ing Day, De­cem­ber 26 2021, po­lice of­fi­cers de­tained 100 peo­ple on board the MV Ocean Pel­i­can in Ch­aguara­mas. The TTPS said they all were de­tained, processed, and re­leased. The Po­lice Ser­vice said at that time that con­sul­ta­tions were held with the DPP and in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­gan to as­cer­tain if there were any breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

Sec­tion 4(1) (b) of the reg­u­la­tions pro­hibits the op­er­a­tion of a par­ty boat.
How­ev­er, Scoon re­port­ed­ly told the TTPS that it was in fact a float­ing restau­rant. Restau­rants are al­lowed to op­er­ate as Safe Zones un­der sec­tion 8(1) (a) un­der the reg­u­la­tions.