Double jeopardy

Having reportedly received a bit of neighbourhood justice, a 31-year-old will now spend three months in prison for breaking the COVID-19 curfew.

With his two arms heavily bandaged and in slings, Mario Rommel Michael Lamar Murrell, of Upper Military Road, Bush Hall, St Michael appeared before Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes and pleaded guilty to being outdoors on April 26 about 9 p.m. without a reasonable excuse.

The prosecutor said lawmen received a report that a man was along Jubilee Gap, Barbarees Hill knocking on doors of residents begging for money. Several residents approached him but he ran off and was subsequently captured by the residents.

When police arrived they found Murrell with injuries about the body. He was taken to the hospital for medical attention. When asked why he was on the road at the time Murrell said: “I am very sorry I was trying to get busfare.”

Sergeant Theodore McClean said Murrell has 21 prior convictions the last in January 2019 where he spent 18 months in prison for burglary and loitering.

“I is a diabetic and an asthmatic. I rent a room in Upper Military Road and wanted to go to St Philip. I was feeling really, really bad. I stopped by a family friend in Barbarees Hill to get $7 busfare. I was sleeping during the day because I was not feeling good. I did not know what time it was. I was aware a curfew is in place,” Murrell said.

However, he said, he did not knock on the doors of any of his neighbours in Upper Military Road because he did not really know them.

He also disclosed that it was men who knew him that “come out and beat” him.