A cater­er from cen­tral Trinidad, who was caught out­side his home af­ter the cur­few took ef­fect, last Fri­day, has been fined $10,000.Shavid McLeod, 27, of Clax­ton Bay, was fined by Mag­is­trate Alexan­der Prince af­ter he plead­ed guilty to the breach­ing the cur­few dur­ing a vir­tu­al court hear­ing on Mon­day af­ter­noon.Pre­sent­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea on McLeod’s be­half, his lawyer Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh claimed that his client in­jured his toe last Thurs­day and chose not to seek med­ical at­ten­tion due to fears over COVID-19 in­fec­tions at med­ical in­sti­tu­tions.The fol­low­ing day, McLeod vis­it­ed his aunt, a reg­is­tered nurse, who lives five hous­es away from his, to have the wound cleaned and dressed.Ma­hara­jh claimed that McLeod stayed there un­til the cur­few be­gan at 7 pm and that he (McLeod) de­cid­ed to take a chance to make his way home be­cause of the close prox­im­i­ty.How­ev­er, McLeod was al­leged­ly spot­ted and ar­rest­ed by po­lice just be­fore he was able to en­ter his prop­er­ty.Ma­hara­jh plead­ed for le­nien­cy as he not­ed that McLeod had a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore be­ing charged for the cur­few breach.He stat­ed that McLeod’s in­come was se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ed by the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as food and restau­rant ser­vices are cur­rent­ly re­strict­ed.Ma­hara­jh al­so said that McLeod is asth­mat­ic and had to be hos­pi­talised last year af­ter he suf­fered se­vere asth­ma at­tacks.McLeod was giv­en three months in which to pay the fine and if he fails to do so he would face six months im­pris­on­ment.Un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, per­sons found in breach of the cur­few face a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $250,000 fine and six months in prison.

A man from Bon Ac­cord sus­tained third and fourth-de­gree burns when he came in­to con­tact with a T&TEC live wire while pick­ing bread­fruit.

A 51-year-old re­tired sol­dier was shot and wound­ed dur­ing a shoot­ing in­ci­dent in Mal­oney on Mon­day evening.

The Min­istry of Health has record­ed 14 ad­di­tion­al COVID re­lat­ed deaths, bring­ing the death toll to 761. There are cur­rent­ly 419 pa­tients in the hos­pi­tal. The Min­istry has al­so record­ed 215 new cas­es in the last 24 hours. This brings the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es to7954.

For­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), Mar­tin George, is agree­ing with the Op­po­si­tion Leader that changes to the process for se­lect­ing a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice be­ing pro­posed by Gov­ern­ment, may need some re­vi­sion, es­pe­cial­ly to en­sure the in­de­pen­dence of the PSC, it­self.

The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) has op­er­a­tionalised a new walk-in health ser­vice at the Her­itage Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing, on Guapo/Cap De Ville Main Road in Point Fortin.

A man from Bon Ac­cord re­port­ed­ly has sus­tained third and fourth de­gree burns af­ter com­ing in­to con­tact with a live T&TEC elec­tric­i­ty ca­ble while pick­ing bread­fruit.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 6:15 pm, the vic­tim was stand­ing to the north-east­ern en­trance of Build­ing 18 when a white Nis­san Ver­sa ve­hi­cle, which was pro­ceed­ing west along Flamin­go Boule­vard, sud­den­ly stopped and its oc­cu­pants opened fire.

KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The first hear­ing of the Med­ical Board's tri­bunal in­to the al­leged racist con­duct of Philip­pine-based physi­cian Dr Avinash Sawh is on Ju­ly 2.
In a let­ter sent to Sawh and his at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, the Board's at­tor­ney, Ra­jiv Per­sad of Al­lum Cham­bers, in­di­cat­ed that the hear­ing would be vir­tu­al and re­quest­ed an email ad­dress for Sawh and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives to fa­cil­i­tate the hear­ing. The tri­bunal does not pro­pose to be­gin the hear­ing of the sub­stan­tive mat­ter on Ju­ly 2. How­ev­er, it will use the oc­ca­sion to ex­plain the pro­ce­dure and give di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of any pre­lim­i­nary is­sues for the tri­bunal’s con­sid­er­a­tion.

For­mer UNC can­di­date in the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, Wayne Munro, 53, was grant­ed cash bail in the sum of $15,000 when he ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mag­is­trate In­dra Ramoo-Haynes at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day charged with sev­en of­fences stem­ming from a do­mes­tic dis­pute where he al­leged­ly shot at his com­mon-law wife.

Could a de­ci­sion by state-owned Petrotrin to change the roy­al­ty pay­ment terms for A&V Oil and Gas cost the state-owned com­pa­ny hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars with­out it re­ceiv­ing a bar­rel of oil?

Chair­man of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) Lennox Sealy has apol­o­gised for last week’s dis­con­nec­tion dri­ve, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, Mar­vin Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.