Three men jailed for shop breaking

THE sounds of weeping filled the air at the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court when three young men broke down and cried. They were each sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labour after pleading guilty to charges of shop breaking and larceny. Even the relatives of Clyde Bahadur, Christopher Toussaint and Nkosi King, held their heads and cried when Fourth Court Magistrate Armina Deonarine-singh, imposed the custodial sentence after declaring that “the prevalence of these kinds of crimes and Trinidad and Tobago living in terror, cause us to have to send a message to young people.”

A fourth accused — 16-year-old Ryan Alves — was ordered to return to court on January 30, pending a suitability report from the Probation Office, on the magistrates’ judgment that he be kept at the Youth Training Centre (YTC) until age 21. The accused persons are all from Pleasantville and range between the ages of 16 to 23. Court prosecutor Cpl Dowridge told the court that around 4.30 pm on January 3, 74-year-old Wilbert Scipio secured his shop located at Lot 135 Blitz Village Extension, Pleasantville. Scipio returned the following day and noticed the shop broken into and found several items valued at $1,139.80 including tins of tuna, sardines, packs of rice, macaroni, chocolate, milk and boxes of cigarettes, missing. The matter was reported to the Mon Repos Police Station and PC Bertrand investigated. On January 9, around 10 pm, Bahadur was arrested at the Mon Repos Police Station. He told PC Bertrand, “Officer, ah will tell you what happened.”

The following day at 4 pm, Toussaint was arrested at his home, while later that day King was also arrested at his home. Bahadur and Toussaint, the court heard, took police to some bushes where some of the stolen items were hidden in two black bags. On January 12, Alves accompanied by his mother Kathleen Alves, surrendered to the Mon Repos Police Station. In his statement, he admitted that Nkosi said, “let us go and break into the parlour”. The four were represented by attorney Mewalal Chatoor, who pleaded for the accused men and called the act, “youthful unparalled stupidity committed in joint enterprise”.  Chatoor said his clients were all first time offenders and should not be penalised as hardened criminals. No big stick approach would solve the problem. They (victim and offenders) would all be going back to live in the same community.” He also empathised with the proprietor Scipio, whose shop was broken into five times since in the past six years.

However, magistrate Deonarinesingh said although she accepted some of what Chatoor presented, ultimately she was “not totally impressed.”
She added that unlike Chatoor’s plea, she thought a custodial sentence had to be imposed. As she announced the fate of Alves, the youth squatted to his knees and cried out, with his mother wrapping herself on the door of the nearby holding cell and weeping. Other relatives held each other and started crying, some even clutching their stomachs. One of the three accuseds upon hearing the five-year sentence buried his head between his legs saying,” Oh gosh, Oh gosh!” Outside the court Alves’ mother Kathleen lovingly held her son in a strong embrace as police led him away. She cried out,  “all yuh oh God, don’t take him.”