A burglar on Wednesday claimed he was “framed a little bit” for the crime for which he pleaded guilty.
Earlier this year, Jamar Leon Ashby alias ‘Winston Hall’ from Montrose, Christ Church, admitted before Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bowell to entering Luther Mayers’s home as a trespasser and stealing several items including a living room set, four tables, a dining table set, a clock, an air condition unit, a bed set, a vacuum cleaner, a toaster oven and a printer.
The items, valued at $25,950, were stolen between September 23 and October 1, 2017.
Addressing the No. 4 Supreme Court, Mayers’ sister gave a victim impact statement to the court during a virtual sitting and explained how the offence had affected them.
She said when she visited the house following the burglary she “almost fainted because I discovered that the house was virtually empty. It was an ‘oh God’”.
The complainant revealed that it took her an entire day to summon the courage to tell her brother what had occurred. She further explained that the situation had also made her feel unsafe to be at the location for any length of time.
She said: “I used
to spend a lot of time there but since then I [am not] comfortable being there. Most of the time I would go and check and stay there, sometimes just relax and open the house, I no longer feel safe there. I just go there, check and get out rather than staying.
“My brother is still very distraught and angry because he left here in 1956 and having worked and saved up everything to come home . . . back to Barbados and just relax,” adding that he had since returned and visited the residence.
She added: “He is depressed and very angry, bitter.”
Asked what punishment she would like to see meted out to the convicted men, the complainant said she left it up to the court.
“I don’t know if I can give a punishment. I leave that to you all because… lots of possessions which my brother would have treasured have been lost and it’s an emotional pain for him and everything . . . . I leave that at your discretion,” she told the judge.
But as he faced the complainant, Ashby said: “Ma’am it wasn’t like how it look. I was framed a little bit for the incident. It ain’t nothing that I went and do.”
He explained that he was on his way home “one day” and “some men was putting things ‘pon the truck they tell me they want a hand. I give them a hand that is how I end up with the table.”
But the complainant told Ashby that he was aware that the men who were moving the items did not live in the house as he knew who resided there.
Ashby replied that he did question the men about what had happened to the person who lived there and after giving him an answer they “carry long de tings but I didn’t know what de going on . . . I didn’t know it was nothing so”.
The complainant told him: “You should have run hard” which prompted Ashby to apologise, saying: “I looking for a little forgiveness. I sorry and thing, for what I put myself into.”
She replied telling Ashby who had already spent 839 days at Dodds in connection with the offence: “I leave that to the court and God is the one that forgives and what part you did ask for his forgiveness. I know my brother is very, very angry but I leave everything in the court’s hands.”
The case will resume before Justice Smith-Bovell on November 24 when Ashby who is self-represented and the prosecutor Crown Counsel Kevin Forde will put forward sentencing submissions and mitigation pleas.
