The Lowman Hill couple who was charged with possession of a number of guns and ammunition found at their home in a Jan. 18, 2017, police raid was on Wednesday sentenced to 25 years in jail.
However, 31-year-old Randy Shallow and his 22-year-old girlfriend, Freikesha Douglas, will only serve eight years of that time, as the sentences will run concurrently.
Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias handed down the sentences at the Serious Offences Court in Kingstown shortly after announcing a guilty verdict, two weeks after hearing closing arguments.
She rejected an application by defense counsel Grant Connell, asking for sentencing to be delayed until Friday.
The magistrate had reserved her decision after hearing closing arguments on May 12.
- The accused were each sentence to:
- five years in prison for one Glock 9mm pistol without a licence;
- five years for possession of one .38 revolver without a license;
- eight years for possession of a prohibited weapon, to wit one submachine gun without a licence; three years for possession of a component of a prohibited weapon, to wit, a magazine of an AK-47;
- five months for possession of one round of 7.62 ammunition without a licence;
- three months for possession of one round of .38 ammunition without a licence;
- two years for possession of 42 rounds of 9mm ammunition without a licence;
- and 15 months for possession of 14 rounds of .40mm ammunition without a licence.
Connell has informed the court that his clients intend to appeal the conviction and sentences.
However, Senior Prosecutor Adolphus Delplesche, who presented the Crown’s case, has expressed confidence that the conviction would stand, on appeal.
Tuesday’s guilty verdict came at the culmination of proceedings in which the court rejected a no-case submission in the case in which Connell sought to prove that one of the weapons was not a Glock, as the Crown claimed.
The defence counsel had raised issues of chain of custody during the trial and suggested that the submachine gun actually came from the police armory.
The high profile case heard testimony from Commission of Police, Renald Hadaway, a weapons expert, who had displayed the weapons at a press conference on Jan. 18.
Shallow and Douglas had been granted EC$45,000 bail each when they appeared in court on Jan. 20, but no one signed their bail bonds.
Neither Shallow nor Douglas are strangers to the law.
Douglas has been jailed just over a year after the chief magistrate reprimanded and discharged her after she pleaded guilty to a charge that she assaulted the owner of a “Chinese restaurant”, who failed to pay here immediately after firing her in January 2016.
She had given the magistrate the assurance that she would never be in court again to answer a charge.
Meanwhile, Shallow has been jailed some 13 years after he was made a witness for the Crown against a number of men with whom he was jointly charged with the murder of a police officer.
On Nov. 19, 2004, a then 18-year-old Shallow, along with a 14-year-old student, 20-year-old Luther Badnock, of Dascent Cottage, and 17-year-old Earl Jack, of Redemption Sharpes, was charged with the murder of 41-year-old police officer, Elson “Rocker” Richardson, of Barrouallie.
Shallow’s testimony was instrumental in securing a conviction in the case.
Richardson died after a stone was dropped on his head after he was abducted.