A St Ann man has been fined $100,000 or six months imprisonment for stealing electricity. Forty-five-year-old Rohan Griffiths of Fisherman’s beach in Ocho Rios was fined when he appeared before senior resident magistrate Andrea Thomas in St Ann’s Bay court on Monday, May 12, 2014. After listening to the complainant and the accused, the RM then imposed the fine. According to reports, a JPS team and the St. Ann police, led by Corporal Robert Barnett, and the technical director from JPS, Barrington Flowers, on Thursday, June 20, 2013 were on an operation in the Ocho Rios area and saw wires attached to the JPS secondary line which led them to a shop in Fisherman’s Beach. The shop was operated by Mr Griffiths and had several appliances connected to the illegal supply. Griffiths was arrested and charged. In court on Monday, May 12 Griffiths pleaded guilty to the charge. The magistrate accepted the technical evidence provided by the technical director, Flowers and imposed the sentence. In imposing the fine or time the magistrate said it should act as a deterrent to would-be offenders. Since the start of the year, over thirty (30) persons from St Ann have been arrested and charged for stealing electricity as JPS steps up its action against electricity theft.
