Accused who says he can stop drugs anytime, accepts help

For almost the duration of his time in the dock, Ricardo Antonio Agard maintained a ‘coke pipe’ which police found in his pocket was not his.

While he pleaded guilty to unlawfully having the illegal apparatus in his possession, Agard said moments before he was held by police he had received the apparatus from a man.

“The honest truth is that I went through the avenue where the police hold me and I stop a guy who was going into the hotel and I got the apparatus from him,” the 25-year-old, unemployed man with no fixed place of abode told the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court.

“I would like to ask you a favour please. I would like a chance to go back to the hotel and find the man I get it from.”

But Magistrate Douglas Frederick told him that was irrelevant at this time.

“The police held you with the apparatus so don’t worry about him, his time will come.”

The magistrate then questioned Agard about his living circumstances.

“My mother died when I was 16 and next month gine be nine months I was living on the streets. I sleep sometimes at the Black Rock Adventist Church and I does get food from the CID because some of the officers there does help me get something to eat,” Agard said.

Magistrate Frederick then enquired whether he had a drug addiction, but the convicted man said while he used drugs he did not have a problem.

“I’m not addicted. I can stop anytime,” he replied.

The magistrate however, suggested to Agard that he should receive some assistance.

After initially declining that help, he eventually changed his mind.

“If you are recommending help for me I will take the help,” he said.

Magistrate Frederick told Agard that in remanding him to the Psychiatric Hospital he “was not punishing him” but giving him the assistance he required.

While at the mental institution he will be assessed and evaluated for possible admission to a drug rehabilitation programme.

Prosecutor Station Sergeant Crishna Graham had told the court that police on patrol received a report of a suspicious man in Golf Club Road, Christ Church.

Agard was spotted and approached by police, who observed him fidgeting with his right, rear pants pocket.

He consented to a search and a bottle with a metal scraper with wire mesh and a hole at the bottom was found.