Bar owner Freeman Fordyce has been freed of a charge of assaulting a policeman after the lawman in question failed to show up at the court hearings.
City magistrate Dylon Bess dismissed two charges against Fordyce, who is the owner of the Diamond Bar and a pawnbroker, yesterday due to a lack of sufficient evidence.
The first charge stated that on November 9th, 2018, at George Street, Werk-en-Rust, he assaulted Prem Narine, a police inspector in the Guyana Police Force. The second charge alleged that Fordyce, on the same date, behaved disorderly in a public place. Fordyce had denied both charges when they were first read to him by Senior Magistrate Leron Daly in December of last year.
Police had said that the police inspector, along with other officers, went to the club owned by Fordyce to conduct a search after receiving reports from entertainers at the club that Fordyce seized their passports and threatened to kill them if they refused to work. During the search, Fordyce allegedly dealt the inspector a punch to the neck, which caused the officer to draw his weapon.
In dismissing the charges, Magistrate Bess noted that Narine had never made an appearance during any of the five times that the matter was called at the court and therefore there was no evidence to support the allegations.
Magistrate Bess dismissed both charges and told Fordyce he could leave the court.
Fordyce, who is currently serving a four-year suspended sentence for illegal possession of a pistol and ammunition, is still facing charges that he allegedly trafficked two Venezuelan women for sexual exploitation.
