Career burglar jailed for nine years

A GRAN COUVA labourer was yesterday jailed for nine years with hard labour after pleading guilty before a San Fernando magistrate to breaking into the home of Chaguanas Magistrate Margaret Alert and stealing more than $1,500 in items.

In passing sentence on Bobby Khan, 49, who is also known as Zaid Khan, Magistrate Rajendra Rambachan described the accused as a “habitual house breaker.” Khan, who has a criminal record of five previous larceny convictions, was also jailed for six months for  possession of cocaine.

Court prosecutor Cpl Kazim Ali told the court  that around 7.15 am on January 27, Magistrate Alert secured her Philipines home and went to work. Alert currently presides over the Chaguanas Third Magistrates’ Court. When she returned home around 4.30 pm, Alert discovered her home broken into, ransacked and $1,750 in items including a CD player, a VCR and bottles of alcohol, missing. A police fingerprint expert, who “dusted” the house, reported finding fingerprints at the scene which matched Khan’s prints.

Around 8 pm on February 3, officers including PCs Gajadhar, Ramdass and Reid, went to a house in La Vega Estate, Gran Couva where they arrested Khan. A small quantity of cocaine was found in an inner pocket of Khan’s pants and he told the officers: “Boss, I don’t know that was in my pants.” Magistrate Rambachan said he would consider only three of Khan’s five previous convictions in deciding what sentence to impose, since the other convictions were for offences committed over ten years ago.

Magistrate Rambachan noted that the three convictions came within a year of each other, with one larceny in 1994 and two house-breaking and larceny charges in 1995. “You faced jail for these three offences which occurred within a year of each other, yet you did not stop the habit. There is need to protect society from a habitual house breaker such as yourself,” Magistrate Rambachan said.