Confessed drug user jailed

Senior Magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine reminded Rishi Pancham, in the San Fernando Magistrates’ court, that he had 14 convictions over the past ten years. The magistrate however took into consideration that he pleaded guilty to the charge that on March 26, he stole the washer and pipes from Arthur Samaroo in Claxton Bay.

Asked why he committed the act, Pancham confessed to magistrate Antoine, “I am a drug addict.” Prosecutor Cleyon Seedan said that when confronted by police as to why he stole the items from Samaroo’s businessplace on Southern Main Road, Claxton Bay, Pancham, 43, also of the same address, replied, “Boss, I tief the fence posts and the pressure washer; I sell them things a long time ago.” Asked what he had been doing to ‘kick’ his drug habit, Pancham told Magistrate Antoine that he had been making preparations to enrol at the Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Piparo. “I was fixing up my papers to go,” Pancham said. Magistrate Antoine told Pancham that she considered his guilty plea, and also the fact that no weapon was used against anyone in the commission of the crime. She told him that a fitting sentence for the offence, considering all the circumstances, would be two years in jail.