Petrotrin employee guilty of drunk driving

A PETROTIN employee who was arrested and charged with drunk driving told a magistrate he began to drink beers moments after he was lost his job at the state-owned oil company on Wednesday.

“I am working Petrotrin and I got laid off,” an emotional Jamal Scope, 38, told senior magistrate Margaret Alert in the Siparia Magistrates’ Court.

On Tuesday, Petrotrin announced that its refinery and marketing unit will be shut down within the coming months. As a result, 1,700 temporary and permanent refinery workers will lose their jobs in about two months, while another 800 will be kept on as part of a redesigned exploration and production unit.

The magistrate read the charge to Scope that he was driving along the SS Erin Road in Siparia while under the influence of alcohol.

He pleaded guilty.

Prosecutor PC Sheldon Salazar told the court that about 10.20 pm on Wednesday, police on a traffic exercise stopped Scope.

On questioning him, they detected a strong scent of alcohol on his breath.

He said, “Officer I just had some beers.”

He was administered two breathalyser tests, which he failed. The court heard at 10.41 pm, his first reading was recorded at 83 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitre of breath.

A second test recorded at 10.46 pm gave a reading of 82 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitre.

He was arrested and taken to the Siparia Police Station, where he was charged.

Attorney Ramnarine Soorjansingh told the magistrate his client was an electrician at Petrotrin but was laid off on Wednesday and at the time he was arrested he was not in the right state of mind.

He said Scope’s condition is not one which anyone would want to be in: “No one would want to lose their job.”

Soorjansingh said Scope does not drink and drive but was frustrated and does not know what will happen to him. He said Scope is in a common- law relationship and the father of two children, five and ten, who are attending school.

The magistrate said while she understood Scope’s frustration, he must also understand that he could have injured or killed someone on the road.

She advised him, instead of buying beers or paying lawyers’ fees, to use the money he has left to provide for his children.

“I understand your depths of despair, but you have to save the money you have to see about your children.”

Scope was bonded in the sum of $5,000 to keep the peace for 12 months.

As he left the courthouse relatives made obscene remarks to reporters.