An­na-Lisa Paul

Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne sur­prised the pros­e­cu­tion yes­ter­day when he plead­ed guilty to three of­fences stem­ming from a tele­vised video in 2011 de­pict­ing the al­leged rape of a 13-year-old girl.How­ev­er, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN), which airs Al­leyne's night­ly pro­gramme, main­tains its not guilty plea to nine charges.

Al­leyne first ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar on April 14, 2012.He is charged with three of­fences un­der Sec­tion 32 (2) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which makes it an of­fence to re­veal the iden­ti­ty of a rape vic­tim dur­ing a broad­cast. The charges stemmed from a video aired on three con­sec­u­tive days on CCN TV6 from Oc­to­ber 24 to 26, 2011.

Al­leyne al­so faces an ad­di­tion­al charge of re­sist­ing ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer ASP Ajith Per­sad in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties. CCN faces three sim­i­lar charges as well as six charges un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act for al­leged breach­es of its li­cence and con­ces­sion which were is­sued by the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty (TATT).

Ian Al­leyne pleads guilty

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing CCN in­clud­ed Sophia Chote, SC, Michelle Solomon-Baksh and Trevor Clarke. George Bus­by and Si­monne Jag­ger­nauth ap­peared for the pros­e­cu­tion.Al­leyne and his le­gal team, led by Om Lal­la, walked in­to the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court around 10.30 am.Al­leyne en­tered the pris­on­er's dock and Lal­la in­formed the mag­is­trate that his client wished to adopt a cer­tain course of ac­tion.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar then reread the charges to Al­leyne, "that on Oc­to­ber 24, 2011, at Ex­press House, In­de­pen­dence Square, South, Port-of-Spain, he did broad­cast cer­tain video con­tent on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion, name­ly CCN TV6, which led the fe­male to be iden­ti­fied by the pub­lic."He plead­ed guilty.

Bus­by re­quest­ed a short ad­journ­ment as he had been tak­en by sur­prise by Al­leyne's de­ci­sion to plead guilty. Bus­by said he had on­ly been no­ti­fied of Al­leyne's in­ten­tion to plead guilty yes­ter­day morn­ing.The mat­ter was ad­journed to Mon­day for facts, trac­ing and sen­tenc­ing.