UK tourist Shawn Tyrell fined $50,000 after guilty plea in Kingston bribery case

KINGSTON, Jamaica — A British national has been ordered to pay $50,000 or serve 30 days behind bars after he admitted trying to pay off a police sergeant so he would not receive a traffic ticket.

Senior Parish Court Judge Sanchia Burrell imposed the sentence Tuesday at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

Prosecutors said that on June 24, 2026, 31-year-old Shawn Tyrell, who is on holiday in Jamaica, handed the officer $4,000 in a bid to stop the ticket from being issued.

Tyrell's lawyer told the court his client had explained that, in Britain, motorists can sometimes settle traffic fines on the spot in cash. The attorney said that after the sergeant wrote the ticket, Tyrell thought the same arrangement might apply here and asked the officer, "if that is something that can be done now".

The prosecution argued the money was not meant as payment for the offence but as an inducement for the sergeant to let him off.

Tyrell entered a guilty plea to the charge of attempting to bribe a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Judge Burrell also required him to offer an apology in open court to the police officers present for his conduct.

"There are no circumstances under which any citizen, any individual hands to a police officer while he is doing his job a dollar. There is no legitimate circumstances where money changes hands with an officer during the course of his duty and the individual with whom the police is interacting. It is disrespectful, it is obviously corrupt and it is perverse," Burrell said.