‘Frivilous’ charges bring judge’s scolding

Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell has made it clear that there “no little offences”.

She made the comment after a convicted man from St James who appeared before her No. 4 Supreme Court described his past convictions as “little frivolous charges”.

He explained that he had described them in that manner because they had been adjudicated before the Magistrates’ Court.

But the High Court judge chastised the convicted man on his characterization of his crimes. She explained that he was from a working class background and stole from another person in his social bracket.

“You rip off their door or you break out their window pane and you carry away their jewelry or whatever. Now, the person is barely making enough money to feed themselves and their children. When you break their window don’t they have to go buy a window, and when you break in their house you don’t make them feel unsafe, so then they have to go and look for money to put in burglar bars?

“So you carry away $500 worth of jewelry and for you that is a little thing . . . but for the person that owns the house it costs more than $500 because it costs [them] to replace the door and the window that you mash up to get in the house, and to put in burglar bars and [they] do not have the money to do that. So you carry way more the $500 worth from [them].

“So these are not little offences, there are no little offences, these are serious offences,” she said.