An­na-Lisa Paul

A British woman who came to Trinidad to play mas and who was ar­rest­ed for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol has been fined $4,000.Louise Smart, 51, who is stay­ing at Bay­side Tow­ers, Co­corite was or­dered to pay the mon­ey with­in a week or in de­fault, she will serve six months' hard labour.

Smart, a phar­ma­cist for the past 30 years, plead­ed guilty to dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence when she ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court yes­ter­day. The court heard from Sgt Ed­ward Ed­mund that Smart was stopped around 4.15 pm on Feb­ru­ary 11 as she drove along Wain­right Street, St Clair.

Sub­mit­ting to a breathal­yser, Smart's blood al­co­hol lev­el was mea­sured and found to be 87 mi­cro­grammes per every 100 mil­li­liters of breath.The le­gal lim­it is 35 mg per every 100 ml of breath. Hold­ing for Ravi Ra­j­coomar, at­tor­ney John Heath told the be­fore Smart ar­rived in Jan­u­ary, she had lived in Trinidad for six years be­fore mov­ing away.

Heath ex­plained that Smart had to leave her Car­ni­val band pre­ma­ture­ly on Mon­day, af­ter she dis­cov­ered her cell­phone miss­ing. Ad­mit­ting that Smart had con­sumed al­co­holic bev­er­ages in the band be­fore her abrupt de­par­ture, Heath said Smart was con­trite and nev­er meant any dis­re­spect to the po­lice or the cit­i­zens of this coun­try.

Invit­ing Ed­mund to ad­dress the court, Ay­ers-Cae­sar lat­er im­posed the fine af­ter he called for Smart to an­swer the charges and be dealt with ac­cord­ing­ly.In an­oth­er mat­ter, Wayne Be­har­ry of Fort George Road, St James, was al­so charged af­ter he failed the breathal­yser on Mon­day. Be­har­ry was charged with dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence on Feb­ru­ary 11 at West­ern Main Road, St James.

Plead­ing guilty with an ex­pla­na­tion, he told the court he had just re­turned home from play­ing J'Ou­vert, when the po­lice called him about a rel­a­tive who had been dri­ving with­out a li­cence.Re­call­ing his first in­stinct to help, Be­har­ry said al­though he had been drink­ing and knew he had ex­ceed­ed the le­gal lim­it, he went to the sta­tion to as­sist and was lat­er sub­ject­ed to a breathal­yser test, which he failed.

Ad­journ­ing the mat­ter to Feb­ru­ary 18 for facts, trac­ing and sen­tenc­ing, Ay­ers-Cae­sar grant­ed Be­har­ry $5,000 own bail as she ex­plained that po­lice com­plainants were ex­empt from at­tend­ing court on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, as well as Ash Wednes­day, hence the ab­sence of a file.