(Trinidad Express) No bail.
This was written on three warrants which were executed on TV6’s Crime Watch talk show host Ian Alleyne yesterday as he was processed by officers of the Port of Spain CID.
Alleyne, who is charged with three offences under the Sexual Offences Act and with resisting Acting Assist Supt of Police Ajith Persad in the execution of his duty, spent last night in custody at the Port of Spain CID office.
He spent the night on a chair just outside the office of ASP Persad at the CID office as opposed to being placed in the cells. Police said they did not want to mix Alleyne with other prisoners.
Alleyne is expected to appear before a Port of Spain magistrate later today to answer to the four charges, his attorney Om Lalla confirmed.
CCNTV6 was also served with nine summonses ordering the company appear before a Port of Spain magistrate on May 14 to answer three charges under the Sexual Offences Act and six under the Telecommunications Act.
It is likely that Alleyne’s matters will be transferred to the same date when he appears in court later today.
Shortly after his arrest last Thursday night, Alleyne complained of chest pains while in custody at the Port of Spain CID office and was taken to the Port of Spain General Hospital.
The following day he was transferred to the Mount Hope Medical Sciences Complex.
Yesterday, Alleyne sent a message to the Express stating that he was in good health and had hoped to appear before a magistrate yesterday.
He said he believes it was an abuse of process and a malicious and vindictive move on the part of the police to ensure there were no bail endorsements on the warrants.
“This is really a sad state of affairs on the part of the police. What have I done that they have seen it fit to ensure that I’m only granted bail before a magistrate?
“Am I a common criminal or is the alleged offence they say I have committed so heinous that bail could not be attached to the warrant or is it because I am Ian Alleyne?” Alleyne questioned.
Speaking with members of the media outside the CID office yesterday, Lalla said it was very unusual bail was not endorsed on the warrants obtained by Persad last Friday.
He said in cases such as Alleyne’s, reasonable bail is set by the Clerk of the Peace, in exercising his discretion, while bail will not be granted in allegations of serious crimes.
“…The warrants indicate that he has to be brought directly before a magistrate, so in other words, only a magistrate can hear or set bail unlike in other matters where you find bail being endorsed in a particular sum. So he has to remain in police custody now formally having being charged,” Lalla said
Lalla said Alleyne was prepared to defend himself against the allegations and still had confidence in some police officers and the criminal justice system.
“But he’s very concerned with the modus operandi used since his arrest and the way in which he was arrested. He’s become very frustrated and upset now seeing the endorsement and having read that (and) feels there is a certain victimisation with this issue,” Lalla said.
Before he was released from hospital, Alleyne was given a clean bill of health by doctors after he under went an echocardiogram, a graphic outline of the heart’s movement, at the Non-Invasive Cardiac Lab at the hospital.
Alleyne was finally released shortly before 4 p.m. and was escorted through the back entrance from the Hibiscus Suite into an unmarked police vehicle by Insp Harvey Jawahir, PC Osborne and WPC Claudia Cabie, who took him to the CID office.
When he arrived at the CID office, Alleyne was handed over to ASP Persad who in the presence of other police officers and Lalla, read and executed the warrants on Alleyne.
He was later fingerprinted and photographed by police officers.
After police completed processing Alleyne it was too late to take him before a magistrate at the Port of Spain Court.
There was a buzz of police officers entering and leaving the CID office just to get a glimpse of Alleyne after word spread that he had arrived at the facility.
Had Alleyne been taken before the Clerk of the Peace at the court to answer the charges, he would have been remanded into custody at the Port of Spain State Prison and ordered to appear before a magistrate later today.
A decision was taken by senior officers, the Express was reliably informed, to keep Alleyne at the CID office as opposed to taking him before the Clerk of the Peace.
Last December, a large contingent of officers executed a warrant at CCN TV6’s offices at Express House, Independence Square, Port of Spain, in search for tapes in relation to their investigation of the broadcast showing the alleged rape of a minor.
On Friday, Persad, the lead investigator in the probe into the airing of the tape, laid information before a Clerk of the Peace at the Port of Spain Magistrates’ Court, on three Sexual Offences charges.
