The Chinese national who offered a $2,000 bribe to a police officer to to turn a blind eye to her relative’s illegal status in the country has been jailed for five months.
Lu Wuying, 34, who was arrested in a supermarket where she was working pleaded guilty when she reappeared yesterday before Princes Town Magistrate Indira Misir-Gosine.
Wuying was charged last week Friday on the same day a habeas corpus application filed by attorneys came up in the San Fernando High Court.
Her attorney had argued that the police had kept her in custody for ten days and should either charge her or release her.
She subsequently appeared before a San Fernando magistrate and was remanded in custody to reappear in the Princes Town Court last Monday. On that day Wuying requested a maximum sentence indication which was done by the magistrate who indicated a ten-month jail term as the maximum sentence.
Relating the facts yesterday, prosecutor Sgt Austin Toussaint said around 11.45 am on August 2, the police complainant Sgt Roger Richardson and PC Ali, along with other officers, went to Jin Xin Supermarket in Princes Town where they saw a Chinese man and asked if he was in the country legally. The man walked to the cash register and spoke to Wuying who was dealing with customers.
He told the police that Wuying would give them his passport. When the police asked Wuying for the passport, she took the officers to an area where she pushed her hand into her pocket and placed $100 bills in Richardson’s hand.
She said: “He papers no good, take the money, let he go, no one will go.”
Wuying was arrested and taken to the Princes Town Police Station where after several attempts Richardson eventually contacted Chinese interpreter Aaron Leung. Two days later with the assistance of Leung, Wuying said she did not want to say anything because she did not know anything and she did not hear well because her hearing aid malfunctioned.
Beseeching the magistrate for a non-custodial sentence, Wuying’s attorney Dane Halls said it was not a premeditated act, but a spur of the moment action.
“She acted on impulse and extreme anxiety.” In answer to the magistrate, he said Wuying did overstay her time here but that was another issue which did not concern this matter. Alluding to a case where a Trinidadian was fined by another magistrate for a similar offence, he said, “This is an opportune time for the court to demonstrate that the law is capable of being applied equally to everyone regardless of their colour, creed and race.
“Justice must not only be done but should manifestly and understandably seem to be done.” He also asked the court to consider imposing a fine given the country’s economic situation. He said jailing Wuying, the mother of a 13-year-old boy would be a further burden on taxpayers.”