A High Court judge has warned that first-time gun offenders may soon lose the option of fines and instead face prison terms as the courts harden their approach to firearms crime.
“We cannot afford to be reaping the bitter fruit of dead bodies from alleys and canefields. We cannot be doing this, not in a civilised society,” Justice Christopher Birch said as he sentenced Keanu Nathaniel Harris in the No. 5A Supreme Court on Thursday.
Harris, of Clapham Park, admitted to illegal possession of a 9 x19 calibre semi-automatic pistol and 15 rounds of ammunition on June 27, 2025. He was given an eight-year starting point, but was alternatively sentenced to pay fines, with Harris ordered to pay $15 000 for the firearm and $12 000 for the ammunition, of which $10 000 was due immediately.
Justice Birch said: “The patience of the courts will soon come to an end, and the time is coming when the dispensation will be brought to an end because it is obvious that people are not listening. People are finding guns, and then they come to court with the expectation, ‘It is alright. I will get a fine for this’. That door will soon close, and it will not be reopened in any hurry.”
Harris ran from officers at Clapham Park, then threw a firearm over a galvanised paling before being arrested, police said. CCTV footage reportedly showed him discarding the weapon, which broke a window of a nearby residence.
The judge told Harris: “You may well be one of the last people who will walk through that door. You have heard in the Budget that gun courts are coming. I want the public of Barbados to be in no doubt that the time will come when the therapeutic approach will have to be replaced with the cold face of justice. I want the people of Barbados to understand that this cannot be allowed to continue, and the time will soon come when a man will come for the first time, with no convictions, and they will be thinking that they will hold a fine, and they will be told that they are spending years.”
He continued: “This gun fetish, this ammo sexuality – it must stop! Once upon a time, you would see young men at a dance hall holding onto a nice young lady. These days, you see fellas in the dance hall showing off weapons, not women. This must end, and if we have to roll back from forgiveness and start talking deterrence, so be it.”
Asked where he got the gun, Harris told the court he “found it out by me by the hard court” and that he didn’t report it because he “wasn’t thinking”.
“Don’t say you weren’t thinking,” Justice Birch admonished. “You were thinking enough to conceal the weapon. You were thinking enough to run away from the police when they spotted you. You were captured on camera throwing the weapon away, so you were thinking…So you found it, and it did not cross your mind to call 211 and say: ‘Police, there is a weapon here on the hard court. Come and get it.’”
“You thought to stick it in your waistband and walk around. That strikes me as the action of a full fool, and you have now given up some of your life in prison for nothing.”
Harris replied: “Sir, I regret every day that I spend in prison. I just want another chance.”
But the judge said: “Sadly, the streak remains unbroken, and I am yet to hear someone confess to me where they got the weapon or from whom. Everybody can find a gun on a hard court. Some of these people cannot even clean up their own rooms or paint a house, but they can find a gun.”
Noting that the gun was unlicensed and the convicted man’s denial of the offence to police when he was apprehended, Justice Birch gave an eight-year starting point before discounting two years for his age, lack of previous convictions, early guilty plea and employment history. Two more years were credited for his early guilty plea, and after his 264 days on remand were taken into account, Harris was left having to serve three years and 104 days for the offences.
But the judge agreed with both prosecution and defence attorneys in suggesting that Harris be ordered to pay fines instead.
The balance of the $15 000 fine is to be settled in nine months, or the custodial sentence will be activated.
“I don’t ever want to see your name around these courts again,” Justice Birch told Harris. “I don’t ever want to see you around these courts again. Should you come back here again, the well of mercy will be dry.”
State Counsel Eleazar Williams prosecuted the case in which senior counsel Andrew Pilgrim represented Harris.
(JB)
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