And, tonight, as sort of a post script to the whole Fall of Faber debacle - we consider the issue of how he was treated at court. On Friday, he and his attorneys claimed they were victimized by a capricious commissioner of police who insisted on sending the leader of the opposition before a judge.
But, the Commissioner told us - Faber is lucky he didn't spend the weekend in the cell block! Here are three sides of that story:
Hon. Patrick Faber, Former Leader Of The Opposition
"You are aware that the only reason we are at the magistrate's court today is not even because of the issue, but because the commissioner takes these political instructions."
Richard Bradley, Faber's Attorney
"This is not an ordinary citizen, this is the leader of the opposition, the constitution provides for that position and nobody is asking any favours. He is not asking to cut any slack for him, but the complainant has gone and withdrawn her complaint. Why arrest him?"
But in fact Faber was given special and deferential treatment:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"If it were that we being spiteful Mr. Faber surrendered himself to the police after 3 this evening. The court was already closed. It was me who called the senior magistrate and ask the senior magistrate to kindly get a magistrate over at the court to arraigned him so that he don't have to spend the weekend in cellblock. So if it is that they want to say that I was being spiteful, I could have made him spend the night and the weekend in cellblock, but I extended another courtesy to them by calling the magistrate personally and ask to have a magistrate available to have him arraigned."
And while the police made special way for him so did the court - who made it a closed-door hearing:
Anita Nembhard, Court Reporter
"Today after di dawg out this whole arraignment of the leader of the opposition and doing my job as a journalist, I never expected to be outside of a courtroom trying to figure out what's happening inside."
Jules Vasquez
"What happened when you tried to go into the courtroom?"
Anita Nembhard, Court Reporter
"First of all the door that is normally open when there is arraignment that is going to be heard in either court 1 or 2 was closed, so I do what I normally do, I go and ask questions: will the door be open and I was told we are already closed at 4, court closed today. So in my mind if you are closed then why are you doing an arraignment where a court we cannot access as the media. So that leaves us outside to try to figure out what's happening inside and then how do they expect us to be accurate in our reporting if they are not allowing us to get into the courtroom like we should be able to do."
Jules Vasquez
"It's open court."
Anita Nembhard, Court Reporter
"Yes, it's open court. Nobody said it's an in-camera anything, but Dr. Arnold has put herself out there before, so everybody knows who is the virtual complainant, so we would have done what we are supposed to do, report and we weren't given that opportunity today."
