Nine months after Diamond Strip Club owner Freeman Fordyce was charged for assaulting a cop and behaving in a disorderly manner, the cases against him were dismissed because the key witness, a Police Inspector, had failed to attend court on five occasions.
Freeman Fordyce
Particulars of the two charges for which 41-year-old Fordyce, of Collingswood Avenue, Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara, had been on trial before Senior Magistrate Dylon Bess were that on November 9, 2018 at George Street, Georgetown, he had assaulted Police Inspector Prem Narine; and that on the same day and at the same location, he had behaved in a disorderly manner.
Before dismissing the charges, Magistrate Bess adverted that the dismissals resulted from insufficient evidence provided by the prosecutor; and given that, after five occasions, the virtual complainant, Inspector Narine, had failed to show up in court.
According to information received, the Inspector and other Policemen had gone to search the strip club after four Venezuelan women had complained that the businessman had seized their passports and had threatened to kill them and their families if they refused to work as sex workers.
This issue had come to light when two of the entertainers had escaped from the club. It was their statements that had prompted Police ranks to carry out the raid. During the search, however, Fordyce is alleged to have punched the Inspector to his neck. The officer had accordingly pulled out his gun to keep the attacker at bay. The entire incident had been recorded on surveillance camera.
Fordyce was, in February 2019, given a four-year suspended sentence for being in possession of an illegal firearm after he had been found guilty of that offence.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has since appealed that magisterial decision.
The businessman is currently before the courts on an allegation of trafficking two Venezuelans for sexual exploitation at his club. In relation to this matter, the Police had carried out a raid at his Diamond club, which had led to the arrest of 15 women, all said to be foreign nationals.
This was after a video had circulated on social media showing a woman jumping over a locked gate to get into the compound. The woman was assisted by four of her friends who were on the other side of the fence. They were holding up the security barbed wire so that the woman could gain entry to the premises.
Hours after the video hit social media, Police raided the premises and detained the 15 women, suspected to be victims of trafficking in persons (TIP).
The woman who was seen climbing the fence, Dailyn Garcia, 25, a Venezuelan, was later charged for overstaying her time in Guyana. She was fined $30,000 for the offence, in default of which a term of six months’ imprisonment becomes applicable. Upon paying the fine or serving time, Garcia would be escorted to the nearest port of exit and deported to her homeland.
