Justice Frank Seepersad said that varying expressions of wine with no worries is so popular with the revelry and gaiety of Carnival that no artiste who writes a song using those words can claim copyright protection. In fact, the judge quipped, “Carnival is the season to wine and abandon all worries”.

Full Blown Entertainment Company Limited (FBEL) which claimed the copyright infringement through song writer Kevon Hart and filed the lawsuit, was instead ordered to pay music arrangers Devon Matthews and Anson Soverall, $50,000.

FBEL sued Matthews and Soverall for stealing its soca song it had produced in 2013, which has as its chorus and ‘hook’, ‘Wine with no worries’. In 2014, Matthews and Soverall produced a soca with similar a hook line.

Seepersad, in dismissing FBEL’s lawsuit, stated in his 25-page judgment which legal experts said lays the foundation for further copyright lawsuits in our local jurisdiction, that, “There is and can be no original skill, labour or originality of thought associated with the said words and it cannot be said that the words originated with the claimant.

Variants of the words have been used in many songs across various genres of music and the said words are common with local parlance and are synonymous with the revelry and gaiety of Carnival which, after all, is the season to ‘wine and to abandon all worries’.” Songwriter Hart co-authored the soca ‘No worries’ in October 2013 which was emailed to music arranger Matthews. A year later in October, Hart heard a song on YouTube titled ‘No Worries’ and he claimed in his lawsuit which he filed against Matthews, Soverall and Gem Radio Five Limited, had similar lyrical content to his ‘No Worries’ song.

He further claimed that Gem Radio repeatedly played the song on Red 96.7 FM, though he had sent notices of copyright infringement.

Matthews and Soverall defended the lawsuit and claimed that the lyrical content of their brand of the ‘No Worries’ song were significantly different, including its’ melody and musical tone.

Further, that FBEL had not yet copyrighted their ‘No Worries’ song at the time they (Matthews, Soverall) had released theirs.

Two music experts, Dexter Simmonds and Martin Raymond testified on behalf of FBEL and Matthews and Soverall respectively at the trial which was held in the San Fernando High Court. Attorney Rondell Donawa argued the case for FBEL while attorneys John Moore and Marvo Harper represented Matthews and Soverall. Attorney Raisa Caesar and Reshma Ramsingh represented Gem Radio.

On Friday Williams, described as a “perfect’ individual, reappeared before San Fernando Magistrate Brahmanand Dubay who reprimanded and discharged him for the offence committed.

Dubay noted that Williams, now 18, was “deserving of a chance” and advised that he not get into trouble again.

Williams reappeared in the Sixth Court where he pleaded not guilty.

Court prosecutor Sgt Parasan Ramsumair read that at about 9.15 am on May 28, 2014, Williams entered a business place on Mucurapo Street in San Fernando where the victim was conducting sales. Under the pretext of being a customer, Williams asked to have a look at a Samsung Galaxy and a Blackberry valued $1,200 and $800 respectively. The prosecutor told the court that while the sales clerk was showing him the phones, Williams grabbed the devices and ran off with them. An alarm was raised and Williams was arrested shortly after with the phones in his possession.

PC Seetaram subsequently charged him with the offence of larceny.

Attorney Steadson Jack represented Williams who has since obtained seven O’Level subjects and is also currently pursuing a degree. Jack told the court that since the incident, Williams has been “conducting himself ”. He produced copies of the results slip as well as testimonials to the magistrate.

Williams’s mother was at the hearing and the magistrate enquired from her about his behaviour.

The mother responded that Williams “is perfect compared to back then”.

A San Fernando-based attorney filed a lawsuit last week against the Ministry of Finance and the Board of Inland Revenue, in what is expected to be a landmark decision, to compel government to set-up the long-awaited Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) so that the $1.6 billion already in the Accident Victims Compensation Fund (AVCF), which was set-up in 2008 by the late Prime Minister Patrick Manning, could be paid to the suffering victims or relatives of the deceased.

In 2015, the Auditor General’s report on Public Accounts stated that $158,268,500 million was collected in that year as IPT from vehicle owners who took out insurance policies for their vehicles, and was added to the AVCF, bringing the total collected since 2008 when it was introduced, to $1,62 billion. In the normal course of things, injured victims in “uninsured” vehicular accidents, have no compensation to get, hence the reason Manning had introduced the AVCF.

On Thursday last, Justice Ricky Rahim granted leave to attorney Asaf Hosein to seek judicial review of the Ministry of Finance and the Board of Inland Revenue’s failure to explain why the MIB has not been set up so compensation can be paid to victims of “uninsured” accidents. In order for the money to be paid from the AVCF, the MIB or some form of it with statutory regulations, must be set up and that has not happened since 2008.

One such accident that was recently dealt with by the High Court was that of the families of two mothers – Joatha Philbert, 41, and Cynthia Corridon, 54, of Never Dirty, Morvant – whose daughters died in a car accident in October 2010. The daughters, Arsha Philbert, 20, and Oniesha Victoria Lucess, 26, were travelling in a taxi driven by James Eastmond who had no taxi badge and no driver’s permit and therefore was not covered by insurance.

Arsha and Oneisha were thrown out of the car when, upon reaching the Mausica intersection, Eastmond had failed to stop at a red traffic light. In May 2015, a Master of the High Court awarded more than $600,000 in compensation in a negligence lawsuit to the two mothers.

However, no money could be paid to the mothers because of the uninsured status of the vehicle.

Three years ago the law lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England in frowning upon the refusal of the then Government to set-up the required MIB to facilitate awarding of compensation to such victims, stated, “The Board recognises that there remains a serious problem about innocent victims suffering bodily injury or property damage as a result of the negligence of uninsured drivers.”

The plumber of Lopinot Road, Arouca, appeared before Arima 2nd Court Magistrate, Debby Ann Bassaw, on January 17 charged Charles’ murder, but was remanded into custody.

The body of Charles, 31, of Pine Ridge Heights, Lopinot, was discovered on the pavement of Royal Promenade Road, Arouca, by officers on patrol on September 4, 2016. He died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Cpl Nigel Bennet of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations laid the charge after receiving instructions from Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard, SC.

The conference is scheduled to be held on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Michael Dorn, executive director of the non-profit Safe Havens International and author of the book, “Staying Alive – How to Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters,” and Criminologist Dr.

Dianne Williams have been invited to speak at the event.

In a statement to the media, Angelo Scope, director of CORE, said, “The main goal of our organisation is not only to raise funding to enhance the lives of the under served, but also to equip them with the necessary tools to be self-sustained entities.

Our Citizens Safety Conference puts the spotlight squarely on vulnerable groups.

Safety and security is everyone’s business.” The conference is free of charge and will take place at the Government Campus Plaza Auditorium, Ministry of Legal Affairs building.

For additional information and registration, those interested may contact Dawn Cameron at 470-2374.

Launched at the Murchison Brown Auditorium, City Hall this past Tuesday, the 15-week programme will see Families In Action (FIA) teaching 50 parents a variety of skills.

Chief Executive Officer of FIA, Dionne Guischard, told Newsday the skills training includes “how to manage conflict, how to manage stress as a parent, financial management; which is actually one of the greatest stressers, to communication with and listening to your children; another big aspect of our programme.” The PEP workshops will be held every Wednesday from 5 pm. Participating parents will be divided into two groups of 25 persons each.

There are still spaces left in the programme, so Guischard is advising interested persons to call FIA’s office at 622-6952 or 622-5365.

You can also email FIA at fia@familiesinaction.net FIA was contracted by the Citizen Security Programme (CSP) of the National Security Ministry to conduct the PEP.

Speaking with Newsday at the launch, CSP Community Action Officer, Natalie Gonsalves, said “during a community meeting in late 2015, residents told us about the top three things that they would like to do within their community, and a parenting programme was one of them.” Approval and funding for the PEP took “some time”; CSP received approval to start the programme “around August/September 2016”, hence the launch a little over one year after the initial survey.

Respect is a lovely word. We are taught to respect our elders and to show respect by many acts such as calling our elders “auntie” and “uncle” and using the titles Mr, Mrs etc.

Of course respect also means giving to those who have contributed their rightful due and paying respect to the dead and the living for the groundwork they have put in place.

But respect also entails rendering to each and everyone his or her rightful due as citizens and ensuring something called equity. It means not privileging those with more “brains” or street wisdom. Or money. It is the sign of a mature society when we see the needs of the frail, the marginalised and those with disabilities placed high on the agenda. But in TT they are not even ON the agenda.

But our society has no respect.

This is evident at the very basic level of education. Where is the respect for those who have dyslexia or who learn differently or who may have either psychological or psychiatric problems? I have tried to no avail to find out the systems that have been put in place to respect the rights of all.

First of all there is the problem of simply accessing information. I have been trying to get some basic information on special education, for example, but have had little joy, even though I have sought help from key figures in the field.

Does the Ministry of Education have a plan to adopt a special education programme within our schools or is it the intention of the ministry to continue the policy of segregation, which leads inevitably to the marginalisation of young people? I guess that is what “bad company” really means.

The dispossessed are kept within the confines of their own cordoned-off schools and allowed to keep company with their like. They may not contaminate the halls that the gifted elite inhabits.

Those who are born with a disability and those who are unable to compete in the brain game have several options. If their parents have the funds they can attend one of the private schools currently catering for their needs. They may also just stay home or keep bad company, or walk the streets, live unproductive lives or just die.

“These people”, as I have heard them called, do not really exist in Trinidad and Tobago so they do not have the right to demand respect.

And has the Catholic Church or any other religious group actually sought to demand respect for the disfranchised who may have autism, Down syndrome, or may simply have a different set of talents? Or do they continue to see them as existing on the fringes of our society and not actually part of it? Ironically, it seems that there are a number of young people who want to teach people with special needs and who have graduated with a degree in special education from UTT , but they simply cannot find jobs in their area of specialisation within State schools.

While the impulse is there to create an equitable society which shows respect for all, our education system is so outdated and out of touch with the realities of our society that these young idealists have ended up in mainstream education teaching large classes and using a curriculum that is not geared to those with educational or developmental needs.

I have yet to discover how many special education teachers are actually working in the field of either remedial or special education. And if those who are so employed, are actually able to function.

How can anyone demand respect for only one portion of any one group? If women were to demand respect they would have to do so for all and without excluding the poor, the unresourced or the disabled. In fact it is only when we recognise that life is not about becoming rich, successful or climbing that ladder and kicking those who are weaker that we become truly human.

And it is at that point that our lives take on meaning and we can demand respect.

The single important educational change throughout the world has been the implementation of what we now call differentiated education, which means the deployment of specially trained teachers to develop the potential of all who enter the system.

And it works. Look at the productive and happy lives of people with disabilities documented in newspaper articles, television shows and throughout the media. If differentiated education works in areas where individuals had previously been ostracised and institutionalised and stigmatised, would it work in our society and help address what is obviously a burgeoning social problem? Would it be possible for the Ministry of Education to adopt a pilot project with a specialised individualised programme that contains both academic and self-developmental help in a community where disadvantaged young men and women had previously been taught to see themselves as worthless? Such a programme would give oneto- one support and foster self-worth.

It would see each person, no matter what their accident of birth, as worthy and demanding of respect.

It was only recently that I was discussing with a journalist the mentally unhealthy state of Trinidad and Tobago.

The journalist was lamenting the fact that there is so much noise on the streets, so much cursing and aggression. Trinidadians seem not to be able to handle silence and tranquillity.

I can attest to the fact that sometimes I am jolted out of my sleep very early in the morning with people passing in the street, speaking very loudly, using the “f ” word, and just cursing as a regular part of their conversation. Many times the anger is about money. There have been reports about neighbours playing their music very loudly and when there are complaints the music is turned up louder. I ask where did these people go to school? I took a walk one day and two men who had not seen each other for a while greeted each other, “Hey, how yuh going? Long time no see.” This was the response of the person who was power-washing a yard, “Boy, dis m—er c–t power-washer givin’ mih some trouble here.” I saw children on their way to a primary school nearby. Actually he did not end there, but continued to curse the power-washer and the job he had to do, with no attention to the fact that children were passing by. There are so many illustrations of mental illhealth walking and lying down on our streets every day.

Rachael Ramkissoon was a motivated student who had dreams and goals of being the best that she could be, according to reports of family members. She will now have no opportunity to be that best. Our education system works for a few and sadly does not work for so many others.

I always ask what did that ten percent of our population, who is wreaking havoc on our streets and in our homes, learn in school. Were they registered at a school? Did they really go to school only for recess, as many boast? Many of us have been saying for years, that we must fix our curriculum.

Something is wrong with it. Our Minister of Education boasts of all schools up and running for the reopening of school, we see that is not so with students saying, “We want an education and not a vacation.” What are these children doing at home, where are they? Someone told me she was on the bus travelling from Morvant to Arouca, which she does every day and saw a child with smaller children getting into the bus along the route. After seeing him for a few days, she struck up a conversation and asked if he was not going to school. He was 14 years old and his response was that he is not going to school because school does not make sense. He drops his younger brothers and sister to school every morning. If Mom is working, what is this child doing during the day? I guess he has to pick up his siblings after school. There is another report of a 14-year-old male child, ironically from the same school, who is working during the day. Others miss school because they have one shoe and if it rains the day before the shoe is wet and he cannot go to school for about two days.

We do not understand that we belong to the classification of mammals.

We are warm-blooded. We suckle our young and we have hair at some time during our lifetime. What motivates us or drives us as animals are sex and aggression. If our children do not learn that we are created with two characteristics that make us different from the animals (or a higher order) we will grow up living from our animal nature.

The two characteristics with which we were created are the power to think (intelligence) and the power to choose our good (will). We must teach our children that these two characteristics make us human. After learning it will be natural for us to contribute positively to mankind, develop our sense of community, and share our talents and God-given gifts with others. These latter activities nurture our spirituality and our divine nature.

It does not matter if only ten percent of our population is causing all this chaos, sadness and pain. What matters is that this ten percent have children and cannot help them to be caring and spiritual human beings, therefore the cycle and ignorance will continue. This is what is happening here. We are not attending to the cause of all this chaos.

Again, I say that our Ministry of Education must do an audit of attendance at schools. Teachers need to report to the principal all those children, male and female, who are not attending school on a regular basis and then someone has to find these children and document the reasons why these children are not at school and “fix” it. We will continue to have our young women preyed upon by those who have not learned that they are human but still operate from their animal nature. They see a beautiful, simple, focused young woman and see her as a sex object. They are bigger and stronger and the aggression can put her under control and that is the end of that. An education which has a humanities foundation will definitely make a big difference.

James Baldwin said, “You cannot fix what you will not face.” My condolences go out to Rachael’s family, classmates and friends. Right now the pain is unbearable. It will be for a while. Then there will be anger at the world, and you will go into a depression. I do hope the Ministry of Education provides you with the help that you need to get to the point where you will be able to move on to a new reality without Rachael physically in your life. She will always be with you spiritually. Give yourself some time. I attended the funeral of 17-year-old male child who died in an accident recently and the homilist said, “When Hope closes the door, Faith will open it again.” Your faith will see you through.

Too often we are witnessing childish behaviour by our leaders.

There always seems to be contention between the Government and the Opposition on the passing of legislation.

When will our politicians realise that the greater interest should be country over party? Our future is at stake.

I want to plead with our leaders to put their differences aside and work together for the greater good of the citizenry.

Let our children and grandchildren see the politicians uniting for the purpose of moving our country forward. For our country to move from Third World to First World, we will need mature minds, starting with our leaders.

This year is very crucial as far as legislation is concerned in dealing with the myriad of issues we face, such as: kidnappings, murders, abuse, corruption, gang warfare, lack of proper representation in local government etc.

Legislation is key in dealing with these issues.

I am hopeful our leaders will wake up to the reality that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Andre Roberts via email

Research shows that child marriage was, in the past, a feature of all religions.

Thankfully, most countries now see the error of these doctrines and cultural practices and, prompted by international human rights bodies, Parliaments are moving to correct the wrongs done to children. Child marriage is, consequently, now becoming an outlawed practice.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates that we act in the best interests of all children at all times, so our laws must protect all our children.

In one case of child marriage I encountered, the Common Entrance teacher had made the child pregnant, but she assured me that he had been a wonderful husband.

But she had lost her childhood, I thought.

In another case, the young girl had been forced to marry her stepbrother who had raped her, as his lawyer had said that if he married her, the police would have to drop the case.

At her mother’s insistence, she married him and became a domestic violence victim.

In yet another case, the almost middle-aged woman lived with her very aged husband and her middle-aged lover in the same household and had two sets of children. She said her parents had married her off when she was 12 years old. Why do we keep trying to solve one problem by creating a bigger one? During the last few months, child marriage, not crime, was the topic that generated the most letters to the press, editorials and social media debate.

Enough has been said. It is time for action.

There is absolutely nothing that a joint select committee can add to this protracted public debate.

In ending, I quote from the judgment of the High Court of Pakistan in the Mehmood case, which dealt with forced marriage. The judge said: “Unfortunately, in our practical lives we are influenced by a host of other prejudices, bequeathed by history, tradition and feudalism. Male chauvinism, feudal bias and compulsions of a conceited ego should not be confused with Islamic values.”

Hazel Thomson-Ahye
Child rights advocate