A painter who spent the night drink­ing while on the job and was stopped by po­lice sev­er­al hours lat­er plead­ed guilty to dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence was slapped with a $5,300 fine.Trevor Ma­hadeosingh, 54, was or­dered to pay $2,500 forth­with with the bal­ance to be paid with­in 21 days.In de­fault, he will serve two months' hard labour.

Ma­hadeosingh ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Sixth Court on Mon­day.He was stopped around 12.15 pm on March 3, as he drove along the North Coast Road. Ma­hadeosingh was asked to un­der­go a breathal­yser af­ter PC Lal­la smelt al­co­hol on his breath.Af­ter two breath tests at 12.38 pm and 12.42 pm, his blood al­co­hol lev­el was record­ed at 111 mi­cro­grammes per every 100 mil­li­liters of breath.

The le­gal lim­it is 35 mg per every 100 mls of breath.Asked why he had de­cid­ed to drink and dri­ve, Ma­hadeosingh told the mag­is­trate he had been at a job site in Blan­chisseuse and had been paint­ing through­out the night, dur­ing which he drank four beers and a drink of vod­ka.The fa­ther of five said he knew he had to dri­ve home.

Al­though his trac­ing was not avail­able, Ma­hadeosingh de­nied hav­ing any pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions when con­front­ed by Sgt Ed­ward Ed­mund over a 2011 charge for the same of­fence.Ed­mund lat­er apol­o­gised to Ma­hadeosingh for telling the court a con­vic­tion had been record­ed against him.