One of the four protesters accused of holding an unlawful public meeting in Kingstown last week has been fined and ordered to pay compensation for stealing a detective’s t-shirt.
John Mofford, of Dorsetshire Hill, pleaded guilty on Tuesday at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court to a charge that last Saturday, Feb. 25, at Kingstown, he stole one white Select t-shirt, valued at EC$30, the property of Biorn Duncan, of Kingstown.
The facts of the case are that about 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Duncan, a detective sergeant of police attached to the Major Crimes Unit, washed some clothes, including the white t-shirt and hung them on a line inside his yard, located next to the parking lot of BRAGSA’s main office on Lower Bay Street.
About 7 p.m. same day, Duncan went to take his clothes from the line and found that the white t-shirt was missing.
He reviewed his CCTV footage and saw Mofford, who he knows very well, stretching over the wall and taking the white t-shirt.
Duncan reported that matter to the police and Mofford was arrested. He volunteered a statement to police admitting to stealing that t-shirt.
In court, Mofford told Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett that he took the t-shirt to wear to a funeral.
Mofford was ordered to compensate Duncan in the sum of EC$30 by today, March 3, or spend two months in prison.
He was further fined EC$500, to be paid by April 28 or six months in prison.
Mofford committed the offence one day after being granted bail in his own recognisance in connection with the public disorder charge.
Last Friday, Feb. 27, at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court, Mofford along with Robert “Patches” Knights-King, Luzette King, and Adriana King each pleaded not guilty to a charge that on Feb. 23, at Kingstown, they each failed to comply with the instructions of Roycel Davis, Corporal of Police 471, when instructed to disperse from “an unlawfully held public meeting which was held within 200 yards of the Court House building when the House of Assembly was sitting”, contrary to Section 10(3)(a) of the Public Order Act.
Burnett, after hearing a bail application by defence counsel Kay-Bacchus-Baptiste, granted each accused bail in their own recognisance in the sum of EC$2,000 and ordered them to return to court on May 23 for trial.
200 yards and folks are arrested for protesting. This is PUTIN behaviour and has no place in SVG. The NDP should ask for this slave oriented behaviour be taken off the books. Only goon squads and dictators operate in this fashion.
Can the police prove it was a meeting? If not then the judge should throw both the case and the police out of the court room.