Magistrate urges 64-year-old to stay away from cocaine

A 64-year-old man who admitted to having, trafficking and intending to supply cocaine has been fined and sternly warned by a magistrate not to return to court.

“Go and sin no more and do not come back!” Magistrate Bernadeth John told Wayne Sylvester Stoute after fining him $500 for trafficking 22 grammes of cocaine, worth an estimated $1 100. He was reprimanded and discharged on the charges of possession and intent to supply.

Stoute, who appeared in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court, was arrested on June 22 when police found him lying on a mattress inside a house at Harts Gap, Christ Church, with a white vial beside him. The container held 40 pieces of a crystalline substance.

When asked about it, Stoute told the officers: “That is dope that I does work with.”

The court heard that Stoute’s last conviction was in 1993, and he had no previous convictions under the Drug Offences Act.

Defence attorney Leslie Cargill-Straker asked the court to consider her client’s age, early guilty plea, cooperation with police, and his clean record over the past 32 years. She said Stoute, who had been living in the house for four years and did odd jobs in the community, used the drugs himself.

Magistrate John fined him for the trafficking offence, with the alternative of one week in prison.

“You cannot be about this dope life at 64, Sir. I do not recommend it,” she advised Stoute.

“I understand that, Ma’am”, Stoute replied.

The magistrate added: “See that long 30-something years that you had no convictions? Let’s get back to that position. Wheel it back in. Be strong in your decision not to go down that road. 40 rocks? That life is not for you.”