Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A preg­nant La Ro­main woman was jailed for four months yes­ter­day af­ter she plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. Ali­cia Lynch, who is five months preg­nant, ad­mit­ted that she hid 70 pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na un­der her skirt when po­lice in­ter­cept­ed a ve­hi­cle she was in. Yes­ter­day the 24 year-old and her com­mon-law hus­band, Kent Thomas, 34, ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Court Mag­is­trate Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds. Thomas, who al­so plead­ed guilty, was jailed for 12 months. Ram­sumair-Hinds told the cou­ple: "At the point of in­ter­cep­tion, the drugs end­ed up un­der Ms Lynch's skirt. I con­sid­er that to be ag­gra­vat­ing against you (Lynch). I don't know if you thought the po­lice would not search a preg­nant woman.

The cou­ple was ar­rest­ed by PC Avidesh Nar­ine on Thurs­day at South­ern Main Road, La Ro­main. Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Rudy Ali rec­om­mend­ed sum­ma­ry tri­al and they plead­ed guilty. De­fence at­tor­ney Wilston Camp­bel ap­pealed for le­nien­cy, es­pe­cial­ly for Lynch who is preg­nant. Ram­sumair-Hinds said she recog­nised the woman's con­di­tion but point­ed out: "Know­ing ful­ly well the pur­pose for hav­ing the drugs you ex­posed your­self and your wife to the risk and con­se­quences of the drug trade. "You are both adults and knew what you were do­ing then you come to the court­room to use preg­nan­cy as a mit­i­gat­ing fac­tor. In this sce­nario I find it par­tic­u­lar­ly ag­gra­vat­ing."

Ram­sumair-Hinds com­mend­ed the po­lice for "reach­ing" on time to cap­ture the drugs be­fore it hit the streets. Camp­bell said the sit­u­a­tion was "an un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent." He said Thomas was car­ry­ing the pack­ets for some­one else to col­lect. Ali told the court at around 9.55 pm on Thurs­day PC Nar­ine and oth­er of­fi­cers were on pa­trol along the South­ern Main Road when they in­ter­cept­ed the black ve­hi­cle in which the cou­ple was trav­el­ling. Nar­ine, with the as­sis­tance of WPC Sh­eryl-Ann Horse­ly, searched the ve­hi­cle and both de­fen­dants. Horse­ly found the drugs un­der Lynch's skirt.