Plot to drain pensioner’s accounts, then scare her off revealed

Stealing a returning national’s hard-earned pension off her bank account was not enough for two men. They also concocted a plan to hire a drug-addled “hitman” in the hope of scaring her from going to police when she discovered the theft.

That plot came to light as Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale revealed Kirk St Clair White’s role a decade ago to the No. 4 Supreme Court, presided by Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell.

White, of Jackson Main Road, St Michael, admitted to unlawfully and maliciously endangering the pensioner’s life by shooting at her on August 24, 2011, placing her in danger of death of serious bodily harm.

An emigrant to England in the 1960s and then to the United States to work as a nurse, she returned to Barbados on her retirement, the court heard. She was receiving a pension from the US which she had transferred to the Bank of Nova Scotia. According to the prosecutor, she lived comfortably and had no reason to trouble her savings account which eventually amassed a quarter-million dollars. She also had a checking account at the bank and went to check on her balances, only to discover that one account was left $28 and the other some $40.

An investigation led to the discovery of an inside job at Scotiabank in which a male teller was charged with theft. The probe also led to White and to the conspiracy.

It was during the detectives’ theft investigation that a report was made to police of the shooting of a female. It turned out that the target was the same woman whose money had been stolen from the bank.

Police discovered that the woman had gone home accompanied by a friend and found a note stuck to her house with a telephone number and name asking her to call. The person who answered identified himself as the one who took her money and declared that he wanted to repay her. But the woman’s friend who was listening in on another line insisted the thief approach the bank.

On August 24, 2011, the pensioner was at home when a man called out. She responded and engaged the man in conversation from inside the house. There were suddenly two loud explosions. She then realized that she had been shot in the hand. She reported the incident to the police and spent two days in hospital.

Detectives spoke to White and told him of their probe into a report of endangering life. Denying any knowledge of the woman’s address, he told police: “Furthermore, I don’t know anything about shooting nobody.”

Asked if he knew a certain teller from the Bank of Nova Scotia, he replied: “Yes that is why I am here; we tief the woman money, I confess to that.”

But White would later confess their plan saying: “It was me and [name withheld] that plan the whole thing… we just wanted to scare her so she would not go to the police. I carry ‘Boy Boy’ to the house. I knew he had a gun.”

White, who was 39 at the time, then gave the police a written confession after saying: “This is the way it went down, honest, I swear on my son.”

In it, he explained that sometime between late July and early August of that year, he and another man sat at his bar and talked about how to access money from Scotiabank’s Wildey branch where the man worked as a teller.

The teller told him he had “found a loophole in the banking system and would require my help in three ways,” said White, “for me to enter the bank and access a card; to come to him and access a cheque from him; and to scare off the account holder for a few months so that we can invest the money and return the funds to the account.”

Steps one and two were completed and it was time for the final part of scaring off the woman which they decided would require a third person, White said. They agreed to pay that person for his services from the stolen money.

In White’s confession, he admitted to contacting someone by the name of ‘Boy Boy’ to perform the scaring. White later drove the man to the woman’s address in a rental car and picked him up some 40 minutes later.

White disclosed: “When Brown Boy or Boy Boy got in the rental, he said ‘the job was done’. I said I hope you did not kill her. He said ‘no’ he scare her good.”

After that was done, he also revealed that the other man started to spend the money “wild” but he continued to “invest” his portion and refurbish his business.

That hitman was later identified as Adrian Drakes, who has already pleaded guilty before the High Court to the charge of endangering the woman’s life.

Drakes lived in White Hill Village, Shop Hill, St Michael and previously resided at Browne’s Gap, Jackson.

In a voluntary statement after admitting to the offence, Drakes revealed that he was a heavy user of crack cocaine at the time, the court heard. He said he knew White for some time and did odd jobs for him. That August 24, White approached him saying he wanted something done to scare a woman. White came back later in the day, picked him up and “he told me he had an issue to deal with and he just wanted me to scare the woman”, according to Drakes. White then drove to the gas station in Kendal Hill, Christ Church where he picked up another man he had seen before.

Drakes said: “While travelling along the road [the man] gave me a small spin-barrel gun [revolver] and told me to go shout for the woman and when she come, just shoot to scare her. At the time, I was under the influence of cocaine. Kirk [White] told me she was not a Barbadian and she would leave after being scared off.”

Drakes duly approached the pensioner’s house and she came to the window and spoke to him.

“The woman was in the sash window with burglar bars and she was position behind the curtain. I then fire one shot from the gun and ran because I was very scared. I can’t say if I pointed the gun directly at her . . .I just shot it and I ran through some bushes onto the highway,” said Drakes.

He got back in the car and returned the gun to White who said he would give it back to the other man later. White dropped him off in Jackson and he was given money to “buy dope”.

Two months later, Drakes heard that White and the teller were in police custody and that he was wanted by police. He turned himself in. He subsequently found out that money was involved which was stolen from the same woman.

The case is set to continue on January 18, when Deputy DPP Seale and White’s attorney will make submissions on sentencing and mitigation. White, who is represented by Michael Lashley QC, remains on bail in the meantime with conditions.