A man who said he was hungry when he burglarised a cafe and stole EC$180 and two CCTV cameras will not have to worry about meals or lodging for the next five years.
Michael George aka Sparrow, 46, of Prospect, will have those provided for him at His Majesty’s Prison
High Court judge Justice Rickie Burnett has ordered that George spend a further four years, 10 months and two days in prison.
On March 21, George pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary in connection with a burglary at Beauty Café Spa at Arnos Vale, which is operated by Shennique Browne.
On Jan. 20, 2024, sometime after 6:30 p.m., Browne secured her business for the day, leaving EC$180 in cash in the office, which has CCTV cameras.
Around 10:40 p.m., she received an alert on her phone indicating movement inside the business and the CCTV footage showed an unknown man walking around with a cutlass in his hand in the area where she left the cash.
The camera later went off as Browne was watching, and she reported the matter to the Calliaqua Police Station.
The next day, she saw a window in the building open and the EC$180 along with two motion-detector cameras valued at $350 each were missing.
The police reviewed the CCTV footage and identified the intruder as George, who they know very well.
He was arrested and the police conducted a search at his home, during which he told them he had given someone the cameras to hold for him.
George took the police to a location nearby and handed over the cameras to them.
He also admitted under caution that he burglarised the business place.
On Feb. 20, 2024, George was taken before Magistrate John Ballah and the charge was read to him, but he was not allowed to plead to the indictable charge.
Then, on April 29, 2024, he appeared before the Serious Offences Court, where his then lawyer, Charmaine Walters, requested that the charge be read to him.
George pleaded guilty and the matter was sent to the High Court for sentencing.
During the sentencing on April 16, lawyer Jemalie John appeared amicus on George’s behalf.
In handing down his sentence, Burnett established a starting point of six years or 20% of the maximum.
The aggravating features of the case were the prevalence of the offence and the fact that the offence was committed at night.
Mitigating was that the cameras were recovered.
The judge held that the aggravating features outweighed the mitigating and increased the sentence by one year.
He noted that George has a history of burglary convictions, adding that this demonstrated that he was likely to commit those types of offences again.
Justice Burnett further noted that George had said he burglarised the business place because he was hungry and that he often commits burglaries because he has nothing to eat.
The judge also pointed out that George had burglarised the business before.
Mitigating was that George had assisted the police in recovering the cameras.
The judge increased the sentence by two years before granting George the maximum one-third discount for this guilty plea.
From the remaining six years, the judge subtracted the one year, one month and 29 days that George had spent on remand.
After the sentence was handed down, George told the court that he was sorry.
The judge noted that the defendant had burglarised the same place twice.
“Why would you do that?” Justice Burnett asked.
George told the court that he grew up in “a kind of family” where his mother used to give him drugs to smoke.
He, however, said he is now committed to changing his life.
Now this is the stupidness of our SVG sentencing, found with a gun and amo you lucky if you get five years, stealing is not the most serious crime although it’s wrong, can someone please please 🙏🏾 make these judges see sense and sentence properly for the crime they committed, Only in SVG
I read the article and felt the same way one monster sexually assaulted his daughter and video taped it and got only 4 yrs smdh