An early guilty plea and clean record were not enough to prevent Jahwaha Jabar Alleyne from being remanded to Dodds Prison, after he confessed to charges of loitering with intent and going equipped in an insurance company’s damaged car lot.
The 39-year-old labourer has to spend 21 days at Dodds Prison after he pleaded guilty to loitering on the premises of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited’s hit-car lot, and there was cause to suspect he was about to commit theft. The New Orleans, St Michael, resident also admitted that not being at his place of abode, he had articles for use in the course of or connection with theft – a pliers and a socket tool.
The offences were committed on July 13.
Reading the facts, prosecutor Sergeant St Clair Philips told the No.1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday that the hit-car lot, which is located opposite the Transport Board depot, has a fence and CCTV cameras that security companies monitor. Around 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, the officer watching the system saw a person dressed in all black crouching between the vehicles, and he contacted the police. Officers responded and found and arrested the accused, who told them, “I was just trying to get a part for my car.”
Defence attorney Barbara Ifill, mitigating on behalf of her client, urged the court to consider that he had not wasted its time and had no prior convictions.
Alleyne offered an apology in court, describing his actions as a “spur-of-the-moment” decision.
However, Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes challenged this, saying, “You were wearing all black and went there with equipment and were there ducking down between cars—all of that shows planning. How would you know where to get the part? You saw it before and decided to go back for it. This was planned and executed, and both are serious aggravating factors.”
He stressed that the court could not be seen as condoning such behaviour.
“This foolishness has to stop,” Weekes said. “You are not going home today…. If there was any lawless criminal behaviour, this is it. The idea that a man can get up and decide that he is going to crawl around in the dead of the night wearing all black and do these sorts of things–the court has to be very careful of the message it sends.”
Alleyne will return to court on August 5.
The post Late-night theft attempt at car lot lands man in jail appeared first on Barbados Today.
