A New Montrose man who was found in possession of cocaine during a police search was fined $636 for the offence.

Dimron McDonald, a self-employed 33-year-old appeared at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate John Ballah on Monday, August 28 where he pleaded guilty to his drug charge.

He was charged that on August 25, at Paul’s Avenue, he had in his possession 18 grammes of cocaine with intent to supply to another.

The facts stated that on Friday, August 25 around 12:45 pm Constable 778 Williams was a member of a joint police operation carried out in Paul’s Avenue.

While they were searching a shop in the area, McDonald was met behind the counter and informed the police that he was in charge of the shop though he did not own it. The police requested a search to which he consented.

During the search, an officer took notice of a small transparent plastic bag lying on the floor with aluminium foil wrappings. The officer retrieved the bag and the content of the bag was opened in the presence of McDonald.

The officer pointed out the offence to McDonald and cautioned him. McDonald said, “Officer, it’s mines, it’s cocaine.” He was then arrested.

The magistrate referred to the guidelines and found that based on the quantity of the drug, the offence fell into category four, and so he moved away from a custodial sentence to fine with a starting point $1155.

He noted that the drug was not sophistically concealed and reduced the fine by $100.

When the mitigating and the aggravating factors were considered of the offender, the court found that there were none. While the antecedents were presented, they were suspended. As a result, the court reduced the fine by $955.

The court then considered McDonald’s guilty plea and reduced his sentence by one-third which is equivalent to $319.

This brought the final fine to $636 which is to be paid forthwith with a default of two months imprisonment.