The teenager, a student of Servol in La Romaine, appeared in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court before Gloria Jasmath and pleaded guilty to both offences.

Cpl Vinton Dinoo of the San Fernando Police Station laid the charges. The accused student lives in Claxton Bay. Court prosecutor Sgt Krishna Bedassie said that at about 3 pm on Wednesday, Cpl Dinoo was awaiting transportation to go home having completed duties at the police station.

While standing at the corner of Lord and Coffee Streets in San Fernando, he observed a group of female students, from various schools, fighting. With the assistance of civilians, the off-duty officer intervened to stop the fight. While doing so, the 16-year-old assaulted a Form Four pupil of La Romaine Secondary.

On being warned by Cpl Dinoo, the accused student cursed his mother.

Warned a second time by the officer about her conduct, the court heard, the accused student again cursed Cpl Dinoo’s mother, this time in a louder tone. She was arrested and taken to San Fernando Police Station where the charges were laid.

She was also granted station ownbail and her parent contacted.

Attorney Cedric Neptune who held for attorney Marissa Bubb in the matter, said that the accused student lives with her father, who was present at the hearing.

The magistrate ordered a Probation Officer’s report and adjourned the case to March 23 for sentencing.

According to reports, the Inspector, accompanied by his wife and a civilian, went to the Chaguanas Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning. It is reported that the suspended officer then left his wife and the civilian in his car and proceeded on an errand.

He left behind his personal pistol in the glove compartment of the car and went away. Officers of the Chaguanas Police Station received information that the gun was in the car and when officers approached the wife of the suspended officer who was seated in the vehicle, she acknowledged that the gun was in the compartment. The woman and civilian were taken to the Chaguanas Police Station where statements were recorded.

The Inspector, who later learnt that his wife was detained by the police, rushed to the station and was advised by police that he had breached the Firearms Act by leaving his personal firearm in the glove compartment.

The suspended officer was interviewed and yesterday instructions were being sought from the Office of the DPP to lay charges

“The only people that could really tell you what happened is him, his killer, and God,” said a relative who awaited the results of an autopsy done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James. “I was not there at the point in time, and I am hearing a lot of mixed stories, so I don’t know what to believe.” Relatives were told gunshots were heard on Manswell Street, Enterprise, and when residents checked they found Stephenson lying in a pool of blood in the road, suffering from gunshot wounds.

He died at the scene.

Yesterday, the man was initially identified by reports in the media as Gabriel King, however relatives clarified his name, along with other pertinent information.

“He is not 35, his name is not Gabriel King, and no relative killed him.” said one relative, “I don’t understand where they (the media) got their information from.” Relatives described Stephenson as a quiet person who kept to himself. He was also described as a family man, who did everything for his two children. Relatives expressed shock on hearing of his death, knowing that he was not involved in any criminal activity.

Police officers are also trying to determine a motive behind the shooting as they continue their investigation.

“He wasn’t in a gang, and he kept to himself,” said one relative, “When I heard he was killed I couldn’t believe it. I had to ask over and over, just to be sure. This is something no one would want to experience.” The autopsy confirmed that he died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Following his arrest the man told police officers that the guns were for his own use to carry out hunting.

According to reports, at about 1.30 pm on Wednesday, a party of officers led by Inspector Ken Lutchman and with Cpl Nanhoo, PCs Cortez, Baptiste, D’Abreau and St Clair and WPCs Clarke and Cupid, were on patrol along Foster Road, Sangre Grande when they observed the suspect walking out of Madhosingh Drive with a black bag on his shoulder.

The officers became suspicious and carried out a check of the bag where they found the four trap guns. The suspect was taken into custody and was expected to be charged yesterday with gun-related offences. In an unrelated matter, the same team of officers were on patrol along Plum Mitan Road, Plum Mitan when they saw a couple sitting in a parked vehicle at the side of the roadway. Officers confronted the couple and then began searching the vehicle.

They allegedly found 160 grammes of cocaine and ten grams of marijuana. The 41-year-old man and his 36-year-old wife were taken into custody.

Newsday understands loud explosions were heard at about 10.30 am on San Pablo Trace yesterday, and residents called the police.

When officers of the Eastern Division responded, they found John lying in a pool of blood on the roadway suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers took John to the Sangre Grande Hospital, but he died while en route. An autopsy is expected to be done at the Forensic Science Centre, St James today to confirm the cause of his death.

Courtney McNish questioned how a trade union could force a company to the negotiating table to negotiate a current agreement while a previous one was awaiting conciliation at the industrial court. “The trade union outfox; outsmart; outthink big … these are people with Masters and PHDs running the country and they let Roget get them to go to the table and talk about a current period before the court. Take me to court then for failing to meet and treat…I am not negotiating,” he said. On January 9, 2017 after some thirty hours of negotiations, Petrotrin and the OWTU reached an interim agreement on a five percent wage increase for the period 2011-2014 while the two sides were also negotiating an industrial agreement for 2014-2017. McNish said he was not upset at the agreement that was reached but he was upset that a company as important as Petrotrin could get itself into a position where it began negotiating for a current period while a previous one was outstanding at the Industrial Court.

Mc Nish was the feature speaker at a seminar, “The secret to successful negotiations in collective bargaining” held yesterday at the headquarters of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce at Westmoorings.

He told participants that a union should not be expected to accept a company’s response that it cannot pay a benefit but that the company should be prepared to show its books to prove its position. He added that inability to pay is not an argument on its own. He said human resource professionals must have sources which can tap into what is happening in the workforce as this would be useful in informing them whether the interests of the workers are in keeping with those of the union. He said the union might have national objectives which are not the same as those of the workforce.

Mc Nish said the company should always be in settlement mode and some signs that the union is ready to settle would include the withdrawal of new items proposed and when the two parties are between one to two points of settlement. He said once the settlement has been reached the negotiating team should break the meeting and have the terms of settlement typed up and signed. During a panel discussion, Industrial Relations Consultant Kawal Singh said it was most important that the company maintain a social relationship with the union. He said the company often begins with the view that the union is bad or evil but once the union achieves majority status in the company it is like a marriage – the union is there for life. He said that 90 percent of the time when companies build good relationships with the union, they never end up at the Industrial Court.

He said that employers are at a disadvantage in negotiations because while trade unions are talking and strategising with each other, employers hardly ever talk to each other.

During the first “Conversations with the Prime Minister” forum on Monday, Rowley, responding to a question on the high murder rate said onethird of the murders were related to domestic violence and called on women to be more selective in their choice of mates, “I’m not in your bedroom.

I’m not in your choice of men. You have a responsibility to determine who you associate with and to know when to get out.” His comment caused national outrage among women’s groups with many saying he was victim shaming and blaming those women who were victims of domestic violence and other forms of crime.

In a statement yesterday, Maharaj, who is also political leader of the National Solidarity Assembly (NSA), said the PM must understand that the “intent of his statement and even if in his mind his statement was misconstrued, is irrelevant to the perceived insult generated against all women and the manner in which his statement came across to the general public.” “To turn this issue into a mountain, defending it at all cost is to show arrogance by the Prime Minister that is unwarranted and unjustified.

The Prime Minister must clarify his statement honestly and admit that he wanted to send a genuine warning to women and that inadvertently he would have been unable to express what he felt properly,” he said.

Maharaj said women were not property, slaves or possessions but were the “backbone of our families and our society” and should “never be afraid to simply live or to love or to have feelings and emotions.” “To simply tell women to be careful about the men they get into relationships with is to turn them into robots, without emotions and feelings,” Maharaj said, adding, “no one can definitely say or know what goes on deep within the recesses of another’s mind.” “You cannot, in a vacuum, call on women to choose wisely, we are all human beings and will make mistakes, to do so is to subtly place all blame on women even if they are the victims,” he added.

He said the PM should have urged men to “treat women with the respect they deserve” while women should not allow themselves to be treated as “chattel by any man, to demand their respect and at the first sign of disturbing behaviour on the part of a man, to take note, to try and assess logically and if unsure to get help.” Our mothers and daughters and sisters must never be put in a position where they are blamed for the misdeeds of men,” he said.

Rampersad Kowlesser, 62, of Dereck Avenue, St Charles Village near Ste Madeleine, appeared before San Fernando Magistrate Gloria Jasmath and pleaded guilty. Estate Constable Gosine, of Special Elite Investigations Limited, charged him with possession of a cutlass with intent to commit an arrestable offence namely to wound.

Fourth Court prosecutor Sgt Krishna Bedassie told the court that on Wednesday at about 6.50 pm, Kowlesser entered Wong Ming Restaurant and Bar at St Charles Village and started shouting and knocking on a table. Gosine, who was on duty at the establishment, warned Kowlesser about his behaviour and he (Kowlesser) left.

The prosecutor added that about 20 minutes later, Kowlesser re-entered the restaurant and bar with a brown-handled cutlass in his right hand.

Yesterday,Kowlesser, who was unrepresented by counsel, told the magistrate he went into the establishment to make a complaint about inconsiderate parking of customers.

Jasmath fined him $300 to be paid within a day or in default he will spend 30 days in jail.

CTO Secretary General, Hugh Riley, revealed the statistics yesterday during his presentation of the Caribbean Tourism Performance Report 2016 at the CTO head office in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“Despite political, security and economic uncertainties and challenges in our main source markets, tourist arrivals to the Caribbean increased by 4.2 percent in 2016, better than the 3.9 percent overall internationally.” Riley said it was encouraging to note that the Caribbean “welcomed over one million more visitors last year than in 2015, to reach 29.3 million, continuing our proud record of continuous growth for the seventh straight year.” Visitor expenditure also hit a new high, growing by an estimated 3.5 percent to reach US $35.5 billion.

The United States remained the Caribbean’s primary market with an estimated 14.6 million stay-over arrivals, up 3.5 percent than in 2015.

However, it was Europe that recorded the highest rate of growth among the main source markets, led by strong increases from Germany (8.2 percent) and the United Kingdom (4.1 percent).

“Despite terrorist attacks in some countries, the Brexit referendum in the UK and bumpy economic outcomes across continental Europe, arrivals from that market climbed by 11.4 percent, to reach 5.6 million.

The strong European performance was evident by the healthy increases of between six and 16.8 percent in each month, compared to the corresponding month in 2015,” Riley said.

Intra-Caribbean travel also performed well, recording a 3.6 percent increase — the second straight year of growth — despite costly and fragmented air service.

Ramoutar, who founded the club in 1992, does not only focus on boxing at the club as kickboxing, muay thai, ju-jitsu, san shou and mixed martial arts (MMA) are all part of the club’s activities.

Ramoutar said he is proud that the club has been in existence for 25 years. Ramoutar said, “Well that feeling is really great. When I founded the club back in 1992, it did not have much clubs in terms of the vision I had for ring sports. I founded the Fine Line Fight Factory with the vision of creating the term ring sport. We started to pioneer kickboxing and so on, what we know as MMA today.

Fine Line Fight Factory was the first club in the country to pioneer MMA. It was an uphill task at first to get people to accept it, but it eventually reached far.” Some of the notable fighters the club have produced are Ria Ramnarine (four-time world boxing champion/Pan American kickboxing champion), Donald Snaggs (Golden Belt Martial Arts Association Pan American kickboxing champion), Jason Ramoutar (world kickboxing champion 2014) and Floyd Trumpet (national kickboxing champion). Last year, Trumpet was Nigel Paul’s coach at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Paul represented Trinidad and Tobago in the super heavyweight category in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ramoutar says he has a mission to produce another world champion and get on the podium at the Olympics. “My goal personally is to produce another world champion, a male world boxing champion, that is my immediate goal. Also, we are going to try to get an Olympian to win a medal at the Olympics.” Ramoutar said lightweight boxer Prince-Lee Isidore has the potential to reach far. “Prince- Lee Isidore, he is poised. He was supposed to be a world champion about three years ago, but because of the local politics and so on and being stagnated, he has been sitting on the bench.

He has what it takes, he is almost there. At one point he was just three fights away from a world title fight, but as I said stagnation killed his growth.” Ramnarine, who was recently inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, has been a member of the club for 22 years.

Ramnarine said, “I feel super proud (to be part of the club) for many reasons. I have seen Fine Line grow from strength to strength.

Regardless of all the trials and tribulations that the gym has been through, in various ways we have always been able to grow from it and to develop, get better and always be successful. I am really proud to be a member and to be a member of an institution that is so long standing.” A function will be held tomorrow to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the club