Kevon Felmine

A Ch­agua­nas man who said he was griev­ing at the loss of his third child has been fined $5,500 for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol and break­ing the cur­few. Ro­nan Alex­is, 37, a welder of John Eli Road, Chase Vil­lage, ap­peared be­fore act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan in the San Fer­nan­do First Court on Mon­day charged with break­ing cur­few at 12.45 am last week Fri­day on the South­ern Main Road, Mara­bel­la. He was al­so charged with dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol. Alex­is plead­ed guilty to both of­fences. Pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip told the court that when po­lice of­fi­cers asked Alex­is whether he had been drink­ing, he told them: "I had a cou­ple drinks of Black and White."

Alex­is' lawyer Dane Halls asked the mag­is­trate to con­sid­er a non cus­to­di­al sen­tence as his client was mar­ried with two chil­dren, had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions and no pend­ing mat­ters. Halls ex­plained that Alex­is' wife lost their third child dur­ing the Di­vali hol­i­day and he had be­come trau­ma­tised by the or­deal, so he took a few drinks on the night in ques­tion. How­ev­er, Ram­bachan ex­pressed con­cern that Alex­is chose to go out for drinks rather then spend time with his wife. He was fined $1,500 for break­ing the cur­few and $4,000 for dri­ving while drunk.