Tuesday 15, 2014

A TOTAL of $90,500 in fines were slapped on motorists charged for driving under the influence of alcohol over the weekend, among them a female accountant and a man who told a magistrate that cough syrup accelerated alcohol levels in his blood.

Clyde Alleyne, 59, appeared before Magistrate Rehanna Hosein in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court yesterday and pleaded guilty to being under the influence of alcohol. Alleyne was not driving, but was standing outside his car in the vicinity of the Licensing Office, San Fernando near the Pleasantville intersection, when police became suspicious.

That was at about 9.45 am on Saturday and at the time, Alleyne had his car keys in his hands. The laws deems one to be under the influence even if one exits the driver’s seat, about to enter or had been driving.

After pleading guilty, the court police prosecutor Sgt Dianath Harricharan, told Hosein that Alleyne told a police officer that he had two drinks of wine, but he did not think that caused him to be over the limit.

Asked by the magistrate what caused him to exceed the legal limit of 35 microgrammes for every 100 millilitres of breath, Alleyne told the court that at about mid morning he was returning from a relative’s home where he drank some glasses of wine. But before leaving home, Alleyne told the magistrate, he took cough syrup for the flu.

“I believe that and not the wine or together, cause the reading to be so high,” Alleyne said. But the magistrate doubted whether cough syrup triggered the alcohol content in the wine, reminding Alleyne that he drank the syrup at midmorning, but he was stopped by police at 9.45 pm at same day, some 12 hours later.

Hosein asked, “Are you saying that you drank the syrup in the morning and some 12 hours later, it caused this to happen?” But Alleyne responded, “Ma’am, that is all I have to say, but I know is the cough syrup.”

Alleyne was ordered to pay $6,000 or serve three months in jail. Accountant Anmarie Gopaul of O’Brien Drive, Debe was fined $2,000. She was caught in a roadblock exercise at 2.45 am on Saturday. She was charged for driving under the influence of alcohol.