Sascha Wil­son

The son of for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and UNC MP Kelvin Ram­nath was slapped with a $5,000 fine for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol in Cou­va ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing. The Cunu­pia busi­ness­man, who is named af­ter his fa­ther, ad­mit­ted to Cou­va Se­nior Mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne yes­ter­day he was in­tox­i­cat­ed when the po­lice stopped him near a bar in Cou­va around 12.50 am. Cou­va was re­cent­ly deemed a "hot spot" and is un­der cur­few. Kelvin Ram­nath (jr), 29, was es­cort­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers to the Cou­va Mag­is­trates' Court in hand­cuffs short­ly af­ter 10 am yes­ter­day. His fa­ther, who was ap­point­ed chair­man of the En­vi­ron­ment Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) in Ju­ly, was not in court.

The mag­is­trate read the charge to Ram­nath (jr) that on Sep­tem­ber 22 at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va, near the Time Out Bar, he con­sumed so much al­co­hol that the pro­por­tion on his breath ex­ceed­ed the pre­scribed lim­it. He plead­ed guilty. Court pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Pe­ter Fran­cis said the of­fi­cers were on mo­bile pa­trol when they ob­served a car swerv­ing from lane to lane. Fran­cis said the car was stop­ping and mov­ing along the road.

When the of­fi­cers stopped him and in­quired whether he was drink­ing, Ram­nath said:"Yes I re­al­ly had a few drinks." Fran­cis said the of­fi­cers ob­served Ram­nath's eyes were blood­shot and the smell of al­co­hol was com­ing from his breath.

The of­fi­cers es­cort­ed him to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion where WPC Robin­son con­duct­ed three breath tests.

The first test at 2 am ac­quired a read­ing of 68 mi­cro­grammes per 100 mil­li­liters of breath which was above the pre­scribed lim­it of 35 mi­cro­grammes. Two fur­ther tests gave read­ings of 62 and 61. He was charged by PC Sankar. Plead­ing to the mag­is­trate to be le­nient, Ram­nath's lawyer, Anisa Mo­hammed, said he was the own­er of Quan­tum Re­cy­cling and Dis­pos­al Com­pa­ny, came from a well-re­spect­ed fam­i­ly and was a first-time of­fend­er. She said Ram­nath was on his way to his grand­fa­ther's house be­cause he had fall­en ill and his rel­a­tives were tak­ing him to the hos­pi­tal. She al­so in­di­cat­ed he did not waste the court's time and co-op­er­at­ed with the of­fi­cers.

Asked by the mag­is­trate why Ram­nath should not be dis­qual­i­fied from dri­ving, Mo­hammed said he need­ed to move around to do busi­ness trans­ac­tions. The mag­is­trate said the fact that the car swerv­ing from lane to lane meant he was not in con­trol. Quin­tyne said he could have ran off the road or crashed in­to some­one's house.

Ram­nath asked for 30 days to pay the fine. How­ev­er, the mag­is­trate or­dered him to pay $2,500 forth­with.

She al­lowed him 21 days to pay the re­main­der but fail­ure to do so will re­sult in him serv­ing nine months in prison.