Pereira suffers a ‘breakdown’

Most people consider him lucky to have got away with a six-month sentence for drunken driving that claimed the lives of seven pavement dwellers, but Alistair Pereira, according to one of his lawyers, suffered a nervous breakdown after the fast-track court delivered its verdict on Friday.

“He has had a nervous breakdown and is under treatment,” Pereira’s lawyer Jayesh Yagni told DNA on Saturday. “Doctors have advised his family to admit him to a hospital. His stress level might have shot up during the course of the trial.”

Pereira’s lawyers feel that the six-month imprisonment is too harsh and have decided to appeal against the order in the Bombay High Court. “He is a 21-year-old boy and an accident like this could have happened to anyone,” Majula Rao, his lead lawyer, told reporters.

When DNA caught up with Pereira on Friday, he scoffed, “I will have to go in for six months, all thanks to the media.” Despite the conviction, Pereira is at his home off Carter Road as his sentence has been suspended for a month.

An alumnus of St Anne’s School, Bandra, Pereira has a diploma in engineering and assists his father in his metallurgical equipment business.