Youth escapes fake kidnap charges

THE OFFENCE of wasting the employment of the police by faking a kidnapping against 14-year-old Lyndon Gooding has been dropped, and the teen has instead been effectively grounded for the next two years, as Magistrate Reynald Waldropt found that Gooding could not be sentenced to a term of imprisonment due to his age. Gooding appeared yesterday in the Arima Magistrates’ Third Court before Waldropt, accompanied by his mother Leela Charles and his father Edward Gooding. Waldropt said the fact that Gooding was under age, meant that he would have to be given alternative sentences. In his sentencing, Waldropt said he also took into consideration the absence of previous convictions, personal mitigation and the entering of a timely plea of guilty. 

Gooding will not have a conviction recorded against him, and the offence of wasting police time has been discharged. However, the magistrate decided that appropriate alternative punishment for Gooding would include that he be put under the supervision of a probation officer for the next two years, commencing December 19. A free Gooding will, however, have to get used to the following restrictions: That he report every month to the welfare/probation officer who will be assigned from the Arima Magistrates’ Court and shall carry out counselling and any other action required; That the probation officer will supply to the court a report every six months as to Gooding’s progress and development; For the purpose of the probation order, Gooding is directed to reside with his mother Leela Charles during the entire period;

Gooding is also to be confined to his home for the next two months between the hours of 5 pm to 6.30 am, unless accompanied by his mother or an adult nominated by his mother. Should Gooding breach any of these conditions, or should he commit any other offences while on probation, he will then be convicted and sentenced for the original charge of wasting the employment of the police. After the sentences were read, Waldropt then told Gooding to apologise to his parents and Cpl Bernard Etienne before the courtroom for the trauma and humiliation he caused  his family and community. Waldropt then told Gooding’s father that he hoped he would play a more pivotal role in his son’s life.

Attorney-at-law Evans Welch, who represented Gooding, submitted that stress drove the defendant to run away from home. In a report from Gooding’s probation officer, Welch said Gooding felt stressed and needed to escape for a week. “His approach was not for economic benefit, but was his reaction to the inability to deal with responsibility,” said Welch. The probation officer had recorded that Gooding felt tied down by domestic chores which kept him away from studying on evenings, and so he viewed disappearing as a means of escaping for a few days to relax. Gooding, who called his mother and told her that he had been kidnapped on December 5, confessed to police that he made up his own kidnapping after leaving his Santa Rosa home to attend school at Trinity College (East), where he was supposed to sit his end-of-term exams.