THREE YEARS FOR ELLIS CLARKE’S ROBBER

The elder of the two accused involved in the Sir Ellis Clarke robbery matter was yesterday sentenced to three years hard labour by a Port-of-Spain magistrate. Donatus Glasgow, 19, of Dibe Road, Long Circular Road in St James, will serve three years for each of his four robbery charges. The sentence is to run concurrently. When the matter was called yesterday by Magistrate Avason Quinlan in the City’s Four (B) Court, the magistrate announced that she had received the probation officer’s report which she had requested from Glasgow’s relatives. According to the magistrate, the report showed that Glasgow had clearly come from a sound background. “The report was useful to me, because with a social enquiry, the court gets a more balanced picture of the person’s background and upbringing.

It is clear to me that the accused has not suffered from a lack of love, caring and attention. He has had the love and support from parents and siblings. However somewhere along the line he seemed to want to experience manhood, and he was clearly unprepared for the decision he made,” said the magistrate. Representing the accused was attorney Keith Scotland, who pleaded with the magistrate not to pass a custodial sentence on his client. In his first appearance before the magistrate, Glasgow pleaded guilty to all four charges of robbery, one of which included robbery with aggravation. In his submission, attorney Scotland told Magistrate Quinlan that he wished for her to take into consideration the fact that his client had not wasted the court’s time and pleaded guilty to the charges from the onset.

Asking for his client to be treated in a lenient manner, Scotland told the magistrate: “If given the opportunity, my client could be used as an example. I respectfully ask that he not be made another statistic. While a message must be sent to the younger generation, the entire younger generation must not be condemned. I also ask that my client, who is only 19 years old, not be allowed to go in (prison) as a ‘soft boiled’ criminal and come out a hardened one.” Following the attorney’s submission, Quinlan, in her address to the court, told the accused and his attorney that her main concerns were the fact that the accused was so young and the aggravation that was also part of the robbery incident. Quinlan then handed down the three year sentence on the defendant.