Caretaker fined for villa theft

A CARETAKER at a villa development in Bon Accord, Tobago, was on Tuesday ordered to pay fines totalling $5,000 by Scarborough Magistrate Annette McKenzie for breaking into two villas and stealing a $45 cigarette lighter and other items. The magistrate ordered 27-year-old Kerry McKain to pay the sum immediately, failing which he would have to serve a total of 150 days in jail with hard labour. McKain, who is originally from Trinidad but lives at Bethel, was facing two charges of housebreaking with intent to steal and housebreaking and larceny. He was charged by detective PC Suzette Woods, of Crown Point police. McKain pleaded guilty. The court was told that McKain had been employed as a caretaker/handyman at the Bon Accord Development and was not supposed to enter the villas. The court heard that Villa 135 was secured by an employee on the evening of October 14.

The following morning the telephone was found out of its usual place and McKain’s notebook was discovered on a table inside the villa. However, nothing was missing. In the other matter, Villa 178 was discovered broken into during the same period and a cigarette lighter and two drinking glasses had disappeared. A pack of biscuits and an opened can of soup were also found on the counter. McKain admitted he had used the telephone to speak to his wife in Trinidad, ate foodstuff, and claimed he used the lighter and forgot to replace it. “Why you all like to interfere with things that don’t concern you all?” asked the magistrate. “So you go into the people’s home, you make yourself at home, you use the phone. Some guests leave back some food, you eat it. You have no pride in yourself, Mr McKain,” she declared.

The magistrate said McKain’s clean record saved him from a jail term and he was fined $3,000 or 90 days in jail with hard labour and ordered to pay $45 in compensation or serve one week simple imprisonment. He was also fined $2,000 or 60 days in jail on the charge of housebreaking with intent to steal. Meanwhile, in another matter, a 22-year-old man employed at Sports and Games Scarborough branch for the past three years, was ordered to pay a fine of $4,000 or serve six months in jail with hard labour for stealing a pair of sneakers valued at $799 from his employers last Saturday. Isaiah Alexander, of Warner Close, Government House Road, in Scarborough, was arrested and charged by PC Campbell of the Scarborough Police Station. Alexander pleaded guilty.