After confessing to committing two robberies in the City to support their drug habit, Rico Ricardo Grazette and Lamall Vallance Whitney were sentenced to serve 12 months at Dodds Prison.
Grazette, 23, and Whitney, 32, both having no fixed place of abode, were taken before Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to robbing Ty Gill of a bag, airpods, a cellphone, a wallet and cash totalling $863.50 on April 18, and robbing Michael Babb of a bag, glasses, three chargers, fanta, a scissors and wrappers, with a total value of $247 on May 4.
The court heard that in the first matter, Gill was walking along Roebuck Street, St Michael, around 11 p.m., when the two accused and another man, armed with knives, surrounded him. They demanded that he hand over his bag and pulled it away from him before running away.
A concerned passer-by gave Gill a ride to the police station. That individual recognised one of the accused and provided information to the officers. CCTV footage was also obtained and when the accused were brought in, they confessed to the crime.
Similar facts were outlined in the second case. As the complainant walked along Hincks Street after 7 p.m., the two accused approached him and ordered him to turn over the bag. There was a tug of war between the robbers and the complainant before they got away with the items.
None of the stolen property was recovered.
Speaking in his defence, Grazette, who was previously incarcerated on a similar offence, told the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court, “I know what I was doing was wrong, but it was cocaine that make me do these things.
“I have nowhere to go and no one to lean on. The only thing I had to lean on was cocaine and when I was in prison it gave me time to get off the cocaine, but now back out in society, I still have to face it and other elements pertaining to my life, so I went back to the streets,” he said, adding that he was willing to get help.
Whitney, who has 31 previous convictions, painted a similar picture, saying he had not received any help for his addiction during his time in prison.
Noting that they had appeared before him previously, the chief magistrate told the duo that people with addictions could go into any polyclinic and receive help.
He also chastised them for their actions before sentencing them to 12 months on each charge to run concurrently: “So citizens cannot do what they want to do in Barbados and be on the street heading home or heading out in peace, because you two believe it is okay to take their belongings from them.”
The post Robbers say drug addiction drove them to steal appeared first on Barbados Today.