Time served for escape from custody

A man who tried to escape police custody because he didn’t want to break his grandmother’s heart was on Friday deemed to have served his time, but he remains behind bars.

Romel Rico Cheltenham, of Stadium Road, Bush Hall, St Michael, was sentenced by Justice Randall Worrell to four months in prison – six months with a two-month discount for his early guilty plea – after admitting to escaping lawful custody with the use of force on November 16, 2017.

That sentence was backdated to November 17, 2017 – the day he was remanded to HMP Dodds on the charge, which meant his time was served.

However, Cheltenham will have to remain in prison as he is serving time for another offence.

Shortly before being sentenced in the No. 2 Supreme Court, he had asked the court for mercy.

“I’m just asking for the lenience of the court. I was in jail for a fairly long time now and I come to my senses. I would really like to go home because I have plans to go home and work. Since I was in prison, I learn various skills so I won’t have to thief nuh more and I am asking for the court’s leniency,” the convicted man said.

His attorney, Angela Mitchell-Gittens, disclosed that her client had already served a six-month sentence for damaging a drink machine during his failed escape.

She asked the court to impose a concurrent sentence.

Crown Counsel Romario Straker also suggested that the sentence be backdated to when Cheltenham first entered prison, saying that he was “deserving of a second chance”.

According to the facts of the case, police received reports about a burglary that occurred on November 9, 2017.

They saw Cheltenham seven days later and informed him that he was a person of interest in that burglary, before arresting him on suspicion.

He was taken to the District ‘A’ Police Station around 7:35 p.m. While sitting in the station, Cheltenham got up from his chair and ran from the room shouting, “I don’t want to go back to prison again. This will break my grandmother heart.”