Impatient security guard fined for taking off in B.E.L. vehicle

Twenty-one-year-old Maximiliano Morey, a security guard of Milpa Area, Ladyville, is in hot water after making off with a vehicle from Belize Electricity Limited’s Magazine Road compound on Saturday.  It is alleged that Morey took his supervisor’s D-Max pickup without permission.  According to the watchman, he was under the impression that it was assigned to their location; therefore, he did not see a problem with driving off in the vehicle.  On August twenty-sixth, Patrick Perriott, a supervisor at B.E.L.’s security section, was at home in Ladyville when he received a call from a fellow security officer informing him that Morey had taken off in the white pickup.  Perriott then contacted Morey and instructed him to return the vehicle to the Ladyville Police Station and hand over the keys to the missing company truck.  This morning, Morey appeared unrepresented before Acting Chief Magistrate Sharon Fraser where he was read a single charge of conveyance.  He wasted no time and pleaded guilty to the charge.  When asked why he took the vehicle without permission, Morey told the court that the individual who ought to have relieved him from his shift took too long to show up to work.  The lower court judge informed Morey that the penalty for taking conveyance without authority is the same as theft, which can also carry prison time or fine.  Since it was his first offence, he was fined five hundred dollars, plus the cost of court.