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Man fined $6,250 for using cocaine as his ‘medicine’

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A Fyzabad man who claimed he used cocaine to treat a rare bone disease was ordered to pay fines totalling $6,250 when he pleaded guilty to 15 charges.

Curtis Knight, who has been using cocaine since he was 14 years old, pleaded guilty to all the offences when he appeared before Siparia Senior Magistrate Margaret Alert. The charges included four for possession of cocaine, three for marijuana possession, possession of a weapon, using obscene language, resisting arrest, two for assaulting a police officer, two for malicious damage and stealing vegetables from a stall. Another charge for indecent exposure was dismissed because there was no file in that matter.

The offences were committed between January 2015 and September 2017, with nine of the offences taking place in one day.

Prosecutor Sgt Starr Jacob told the court that around 4.36 pm on June 9, 2016, PC Gopaul responded to a report of a man armed with a weapon in Fyzabad and searched Knight ,who fitted the description of the suspect. They found marijuana and cocaine in his possession, but when they tried to arrest him he pulled away violently, struggled with the officers and cursed them. Knight then threw himself on the ground, taking PC Gopaul and Ramlal with him and they were injured as a result.

During the attempts to subdue him, Knight damaged PC Gopaul’s police shirt and Ramlal’s jersey. When the officers searched him again they found a knife in the waist of his pants.

Before passing sentence, the magistrate asked Knight when he would settle down, stop giving trouble and realise it makes no sense using cocaine and marijuana. Knight told her a doctor at a public hospital gave him a prescription to use cocaine to treat his illness, a rare bone disease.

“If I had a problem my hand would be shaking,” he said, holding out his hand for the magistrate to see.

Knight was reprimanded and discharged on four of the charges, but also has to pay $1,825 in compensation, failing which he will serve various jail terms, the longest of which is three months.


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