Ankrah loses Beauty Queen battle

MISS Universe franchise holder Peter Elias and Associates was yesterday given the green light to select a delegate to replace current Miss TT Cheryl Ankrah to represent this country at the May 31 Miss Universe Pageant in Thailand. The selection process was scheduled to take place at Trotters last evening. After weeks of filing and responding to affidavits by both Ankrah and the company, Madame Justice Amrika Tiwary-Reddy yesterday discharged the ex-parte injunction granted to Ankrah on February 19, which prevented the company from selecting a candidate to replace her. She also ordered that Ankrah pay the costs of the summons.

In handing down her judgment, Tiwary-Reddy said after evaluating the correspondence exchanged by Elias and Ankrah, there was no evidence that Ankrah had followed her training routine, although her weak areas had been highlighted by Elias. Regarding the obtaining of the ex-parte injunction, the judge said, Ankrah should have notified the company of her intention, adding that in seeking to obtain the injunction, she (Ankrah) had failed to disclose several material facts which were of importance to the case. The battle began when an attempt was made by the company to disqualify 26-year-old Ankrah from representing this country at the pageant because of her alleged failure to comply with the preparatory requirements for the pageant.

In turn, Ankrah sought and was granted the injunction by Justice David Myers. When the matter came up before Tiwary-Reddy at the Port-of-Spain Assizes, attorneys for both sides argued their clients cases. According to Ankrah’s attorney, Denyse Gouveia, it was not her client’s fault that no schedule was prepared and time frames developed for her to attain the “perfect body.” She said it was left up to Ankrah to “develop, manage and maintain” her schedule. Company attorney Andre des Vignes submitted that Ankrah misled the court into thinking that the major issue had been her failure to attain “the perfect body.”

He said her trainers had pointed out that she had no projection on stage, had bad posture, a weak walk, spoke in a low muffled voice, had no facial expression, was unable to apply make-up, was not warm and outgoing, was overweight and her body was not toned and firm. However, this knowledge did not motivate her to train as she should have. Des Vignes referred to a number of e-mails which had been exchanged between Elias and Ankrah for several months, in which Ankrah accepted the blame for not taking her preparation for the pageant seriously. After yesterday’s ruling, Tiwary-Reddy asked attorneys for the company and Ankrah to give her short written submissions relative to the setting up of an inquiry to determine the cost of the damages Ankrah’s injunction incurred. The judge will rule on these submissions later this week.