An­na-Lisa Paul

Crime Watch tele­vi­sion host Ian Al­leyne yes­ter­day es­caped a cus­to­di­al sen­tence when he was fined $30,000 af­ter be­ing found guilty of three charges un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act.He was charged un­der Sec­tion 32 (2) which makes it an of­fence to re­veal the iden­ti­ty of a rape vic­tim dur­ing a broad­cast.In the videos, aired on three con­sec­u­tive days in Oc­to­ber 2011, the footage iden­ti­fied the un­der-age vic­tim on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion.

De­liv­er­ing the rul­ing yes­ter­day in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court, Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar told Al­leyne that from those to whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed.She said while Al­leyne's ac­tion to as­sist was com­mend­able, it was im­por­tant to en­sure he did not "cross the line or tram­ple on the rights of oth­ers.""Re­spon­si­ble ac­tion is need­ed and ex­pect­ed," Ay­ers-Cae­sar said.

The charges stem from a video which was aired on the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN) TV6 on Oc­to­ber 24, 25 and 26, 2011. Af­ter he left the court yes­ter­day, Al­leyne broke his si­lence for the first time and claimed TV6's head of news Do­minic Kaliper­sad had viewed the footage be­fore it was shown and had grant­ed him per­mis­sion to air the con­tro­ver­sial video.

Speak­ing to re­porters on the steps of the cour­t­house, Al­leyne said: "Sub­se­quent to that tape com­ing in­to my pos­ses­sion, I took the footage on that day and showed the in­di­vid­ual who is as­signed to mon­i­tor my stuff be­fore air­ing."A lot of peo­ple might be of the opin­ion that I took this tape and just aired it on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion but I was giv­en per­mis­sion to show that tape on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion by Do­minic Kaliper­sad and I want the en­tire na­tion to know that."

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Kaliper­sad de­nied hav­ing giv­en Al­leyne au­tho­ri­sa­tion to air the video."Mr Al­leyne has told an un­truth," Kaliper­sad said.He said he had been ad­vised by his at­tor­neys not to com­ment fur­ther.Al­leyne, who ini­tial­ly plead­ed not guilty on April 14, 2012, and lat­er changed his plea last March 6, said the rev­e­la­tion was meant to "clear the air" and show the coun­try he was not a mad­man.

Ian Al­lyne fined

He is al­so charged with re­sist­ing ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer ASP Ajith Per­sad and has main­tained a not guilty plea in re­spect of that charge. He will reap­pear on May 1, be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate An­nette Mc Ken­zie in the Fourth Court to an­swer that charge.Al­leyne has been giv­en two weeks in which to pay all the mon­ey, or in de­fault, he will serve 24 months' hard labour in re­la­tion to each charge.

Rep­re­sent­ing the state was George Bus­by as­sist­ed by Si­monne Jag­ger­nauth.CCN al­so faces three sim­i­lar charges un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, 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).CCN has main­tained it's not guilty plea in re­la­tion to all the charges.Their at­tor­neys, Sophia Chote, SC, Michelle Solomon-Baksh and Trevor Clarke, will re­turn to court on May 13.

Main­tain­ing that some good had re­sult­ed from the in­ci­dent as the per­pe­tra­tors had been found and tak­en be­fore the court, Al­leyne said he knew the con­vic­tion would have an im­pact on his as­pi­ra­tions to high of­fice in the fu­ture.Asked yes­ter­day if he felt set up and why he had now sought to ap­por­tion blame, Al­leyne said:

"I don't know if I was de­lib­er­ate­ly set up by Do­minic Kaliper­sad. I want the en­tire na­tion to know that be­fore I aired that tape, there is a pol­i­cy that once I bring footage to the stu­dio, it must be viewed by my ed­i­tor."At that time, they had as­signed Kaliper­sad to re­view my con­tent and when I brought that tape, he saw that tape.

"For days it went on and I don't want any­body to ever think that Ian Al­leyne is a mad­man to just air a tape on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion like that. In fact, from then to now every­thing I aired on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion must be re­viewed. So don't ever let any­body think that of me. I was giv­en per­mis­sion by Do­minic Kaliper­sad."

Asked if he was ready to deal with the fall­out his state­ment would cre­ate, Al­leyne re­vealed that his con­tract with CCN was due to end on April 8, but stressed:

"I have ab­solute­ly no prob­lem with Kaliper­sad. I have no ab­solute­ly no prob­lem with TV6. I am very com­fort­able work­ing there and I have had no bad mem­o­ries or any­thing neg­a­tive to say about TV6. They treat me well."

Al­leyne said his at­tor­ney was in re­ceipt of con­tract re­new­al doc­u­ments from CCN.