Four friends have been each fined $10,000 for breach­ing the cur­few af­ter they got a flat tyre on their way home from a birth­day par­ty on Sat­ur­day. 

Vi­jay Sookhai, Kr­ish­na Ramkissoon, Akeem Sam­bra­no, and Jar­od Bal­ai, all of De­ok­iesingh Street, St Au­gus­tine, were fined af­ter plead­ing guilty to the of­fence dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Mag­is­trate Du­ane Mur­ray, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the group was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day night af­ter po­lice stopped a ve­hi­cle they were dri­ving in along La Clave Street South in Ch­agua­nas. 

Pre­sent­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea on the group’s be­half, their lawyer Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh claimed that they had at­tend­ed a small birth­day par­ty and were on their way home when they got the flat tyre. 

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­hara­jh, around 8.30 pm, the men’s friend came to their as­sis­tance with a com­pres­sor. 

Al­though the cur­few was about to be­gin, the men de­cid­ed to take a chance to make their way home but were in­ter­cept­ed by po­lice short­ly af­ter. 

The men were giv­en six months in which to pay their fines. In the event that they fail to ad­here to the dead­line, they will face six months in prison. 

Un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2021, which pre­scribes the dai­ly 9 pm to 5 am cur­few dur­ing the on­go­ing Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, per­sons in breach face a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $250,000 fine and six months in prison.