BUSINESSMAN Adrian Scoon made his first court appearance on Monday charged with breaching public health regulations by holding a public party and operating a party boat without permission on Boxing Day, last year.
He is also charged with breaching the regulations relating to public gatherings in excess of ten people.
Scoon, the son of Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, appeared virtually before Port of Spain magistrate Kerianne Byer along with 91 other people who were said to be patrons of the brunch event that took place on his Ocean Pelican vessel.
Another man, event promoter Shadeed Abdullah, was also charged with the same offences while the other 90 were charged with breaching the regulations as it related to public gatherings.
At Monday’s hearing, Byer read out the names of all 91 and assigned them a number. They will return to court in batches of 30 on May 9, at which time it is expected an attorney from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will be assigned to prosecute the group.
She also heard from those represented by legal counsel and those who were not if they were properly served with a summons to appear at Monday’s hearing, asking each of them if they chose to waive their right to service or if fresh summonses should be issued if they so choose.
Scoon had been served with a summons in early March following a raid on his home in Maraval and his office at Queen’s Park West by police in January.
At Monday’s hearing, Byer said she did not intend to take individual pleas since in a previous matter, involving a little over 60 people accused of breaching the regulations in an unrelated incident, the DPP’s office wrote to her, indicating its intention to take over the matter from police prosecutors.
At that hearing, she had separated the accused by their willingness to plead and adjourned their sentencing before receiving the letter from the DPP’s office.
"I don’t intend to waste my time giving people the false hope that their pleas would be heard today or in the near future," Byer said, adding that in the other matter, she was told the police no longer had control over the prosecution and the matter would be dealt with by state counsel when one is appointed.
“I suspect the same is going to happen here,” Byer said.
As a result, during the two-hour-long sitting, none of the accused were called upon to plead, nor were the charges even read.
In response to questions from the magistrate, police prosecutor Sgt George said he intended to send the file to the DPP’s office within the month because of “technical issues and the gravity” of the matter.
The announcement led to Scoon’s attorney Larry Williams saying he was “perplexed” by the procedure to be adopted.
“I am a bit perplexed. This is your court. If the DPP’s Office wants to be involved then the DPP’s Office should have an officer (attorney) present.
“The dog always wags the tail and the DPP’s Office is not the dog,” Williams said to the court.
Williams said those before the court deserved the right to
