A Rose Place man was denied bail on Monday when he appeared at the Serious Offence Court in Kingstown, charged with robbing a tourist in the city last week.
Jervany Baptiste was charged that last Wednesday, Nov. 8, at Bentick Square, Kingstown, he robbed an unknown man of an unknown address of one gold bangle.
He was also charged that on the same date and place, he resisted the arrest of Sergeant Keith Mc Burnette.
A third charge was that Baptiste assaulted the said police officer.
He was not required to plead to the indictable charges when he appeared before Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias.
Senior Prosecutor Adolphus Delplesche objected to bail, saying that detectives are conducting further investigations into the matter.
Delplesche noted the formulation of the robbery charge and told the court that the virtual complainant was a visitor to St. Vincent and investigations are being carried out in relation to the virtual complainant.
The prosecutor further noted that it is the cruise season and said that the accused has a propensity for committing similar crimes.
He, therefore, asked the court to remand Baptiste into custody, even as he noted that bail couldn’t be denied indefinitely.
Delplesche, therefore, urged the investigators to expedite their investigation “more conscientiously” so as to have the matter ventilated soonest.
The chief magistrate said she was not considering bail at that time and remanded the accused man in custody until next Monday, Nov. 20, for bail review.
The charges against Baptiste stem from an incident in Kingstown where a group of tourists were assaulted and robbed of a piece of jewellery.
iWitness News understands that a plainclothes/off-duty police officer saw the crime in progress and intervened.
The assailant is said to have escaped while trading blows with the police officer.
iWitness News further understands that the virtual complainant, said to be a passenger on the cruise ship Britannia, which was making its first call to St. Vincent this season, left the country without filing a report with police.
This is a crime that can potentially cause damage to a major economic sector. There should be no bail for this punk, at least until the peak tourist season is over.
our economy is bad as it is an matters like these should never happened.I think they should keep him I prison at least until the season is over..
This is shameful we need tourists coming to our country that ship may not return because of someone who do not know or understand the value of tourism he should not be granted bail until after the tourist season is over people like him is a treat to the growth of SVG I know how those tourists feel because it happens to me also returning to SVG
Nothing good comes out of Paul’s Lot. The area had a long bad history.