Letter: Fatherly advice for Collin Partap

I have stayed back a bit before commenting on the Collin Partap issue, because, really and truly, though I feel sorry for the young man, I wanted to read how "certain parties" would try to spin it, for the world of politics is somewhat entertaining too, in that one slip up can break you, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.

Collin, you could be my son. By that I mean your age hasn't put you or me beyond the threshold where that's mathematically impossible. So let me speak to you as a father who loves his son would, would you?

Even from a distance a loving father can detect that something's amiss with his child when, out of the blue, his child does something completely out of whack. 

It is why my children have always been warned or cajoled to have a trustworthy shoulder to lean on when the going gets rough, simply because sometimes, or eventually, their loving father simply would not be around and, like it or not, no man, or woman, is an island.

I remember attending Arima Magistrate's Court many many years ago. I had gone there to obtain a bar licence for a village sports' day. The magistrate's name I can't recall. Given his then age, all I know he is long gone from this Earth by now.

While waiting for the licensing session to begin, I sat in the court and listened to some regular cases being dispensed. Suddenly the name of a very learned person was called. When that person stood up, the Magistrate too jumped to his feet. The magistrate looked very agitated and very concerned and begged of the police prosecutor what was going on.

It turned out the well known person was before the court on a charge of driving under the influence. Poor fellow, the policeman who had laid the charge, that is, the magistrate immediately took a lag in his tail.

"What was going through you mind when you stopped the vehicle? Didn't you right away recognize who the driver was?"

"No, you honour!", replied the officer, his voice trembling as a figleaf would in the wind.

"This is Mr So and So!", the magistrate thundered, "An Honourable citizen if ever there was one! A man who supports orphans and charities all over the land. If you found him in difficulty, unable to conduct himself or his veicle (that's how the livid magistrate pronounced it), what you should have done was taken the wheel yourself and driven him to his home, rather than bring him here to be a spectacle!"

I can't recall how the verdict went. It really doesn't matter. I have mentioned sufficient as my memory allows, for the point I want to make is that every police officer is lawfully allowed to use his or her discretion when encountering seeming indiscretion by upstanding, well-known citizens that, on the face of it, is downright illegal, but had not yet resulted in harm to anyone. 

Why record the noise of a tree falling in the middle of the forest, then broadcast it worldwide when you have the power to prop it so it wouldn't fall?

I hope in saying what I've said no one takes me for one who condones law-breaking. The law is there for the purpose of order and, without order, none of us would be free. But we know too the law could be as asinine as those who can't or simply won't apply it equitably.

Collin, you have been made to pay a heavy price. The loss of prestige in any small town is often something from which many never recover, but always something from which all may learn. 

I hope you have learnt your lesson, Collin. The best way to show that you have learnt would be by, from now on, becoming a teetotaller and championing the don't drink and drive cause. Who knows, it may the silver lining behind this dark cloud. For alcohol has its blessings and its curses. 

The curses outweigh the blessings though. As an exemplar, it makes to stay far from it.

On a closing note, the picture circulating of you inside a police station being made to self-breathalyze had to have been taken inside the station. Our entertainment industry is not that well developed for paparazzi to survive here at all. 

So it is easy to determine who snapped it and who first posted it where. Our tracking capacity is sufficiently well developed. Ask Ian Alleyne, if you doubt me. 

It would be interesting to know which police officer took or posted the picture. He or she needs to be tonguelashed as sternly as he who arrested Herman Besson was, or worse, because clearly it was done out of malice, not ignorance born of inexperience.

Garry Hunter | La Seiva, Maraval, Trinidad.