Justice Birch chastises crop thieves

A High Court judge has chastised crop thieves who reap the fruits of the hard labour of the island’s farmers, as he applauded those who continue to plant crops to feed the country despite the challenges of praedial larceny.

Justice Christopher Birch delivered both the rebuke and commendation as he dealt with the case of a man who stole $12 050 worth of crops belonging to the then Barbados Agricultural Management Company Limited (BAMC), from Searles Plantation, just over 14 years ago.

“There is nothing more frustrating than for a man or a woman to put backbreaking labour, love and attention – battling the scourges of pests and now we have monkeys overrunning the various kitchen gardens and plantations so it cannot be easy – . . . to have a society where you have people who want to raid the barn but don’t want to plant the corn,” Birch said.

“It baffles me that people watch others not with a view of assisting them when they are planting but . . . watching them with evil intent to that moment just before you reap literally the fruits of your labour.”

The judge said tribute must be paid to farmers who “do not just throw up their hands and walk away and in so doing starve us of their produce”.

“It would be so easy for the farmers to collectively decide ‘we done with this, you all go in the supermarket and pay their prices’. . . ,” said Birch who added that people did not seem to understand that “farming not only feeds us, it is one of the most vital allies in the fight against climate change”.

In the case before him, Ricardo Anderson Hoyte, of Chimborazo, St Joseph, pleaded guilty to stealing 4 950 pounds of sweet potato, 1 000 pounds of yam, and 150 pounds of sweet potato between January 23 and February 1, 2008 from Searles Plantation in Christ Church.

State prosecutor Senior Crown Counsel Oliver Thomas told the court that the plantation manager at the time received a phone call on the morning of January 18, 2008 from someone who identified themselves as Attorney General Dale Marshall. As a result of the conversation, the manager spoke to the person in charge about the sale of yams and affixed cost.

Four days later, the manager returned a call to the individual claiming to be Marshall and 1 000  pounds of yams were reaped and arrangements were subsequently made for the produce to be collected.

A man, later identified as Hoyte, did the collection and signed an invoice with arrangements for the payment to be made later. The other crops were also handed over but the promise of a $10 000 cheque was never kept.

The manager then called the Office of the Attorney General and spoke to Mashall about the situation, and realised that it was not the same person who had put in the request for the produce.

The matter was reported to the police who carried out investigations and Hoyte was subsequently arrested.

Justice Birch described the crime as sophisticated.

“It is a tribute to a Barbados that no longer exists – the trusting Barbados where somebody calls you and you assume that they are whom they say they are. . . . It is also a comment on the position that we take when it comes to certain names in society.

“This was a crime that operated with a certain degree of sophistication that would be shocking even in 2022 far less in 2008. When I look at that sophistication, the knowledge that somebody on a phone call and a name being dropped, they knew that people would assist them and they exploited that trust. That could never be a good thing,” the judge said.

Addressing the court before he was sentenced, Hoyte pleaded for leniency. He had 24 convictions in 2001 and 2008, including 11 for theft and 11 for criminal deception.

“Sir, I need another chance. All of these occurrences . . . [are] just a part of the pack that would have occurred in 2008. I am very sorry. I have since then changed my life and I am heading now in a positive direction . . . . It is 14 years I haven’t get involved with nothing to do with the law since 2008 when all of these issues came up,” he begged.

“I am a good producer in crops but my business management style at the time was very poor. So I squandered a lot of the money; as a result, I made some decisions in 2008 that I regret today . . . . That 2008 issue, I must admit that things was so hard. I squandered the money I made for the crops,” Hoyte added.

Thomas and defence attorney Sade Harris from the chambers of Michael Lashley Q.C ., agreed that the convicted man should receive a suspended sentence given his guilty plea and the lengthy delay in hearing the matter in the law courts. The lawyers also bemoaned the issues of praedial larceny in the country.

Justice Birch sentenced Hoyte to six years in prison. However, after deductions were made for the delay in adjudicating the matter, his guilty plea, and the “powerful mitigating factor” that he had stayed out of trouble with the law for 14 years, he received a sentence of 18 months in prison which was suspended for two years.

“At the end of those two years, once you retain that good behaviour this particular matter will be expunged from your record,” the judge told him.
fernellawedderburn@barbadostoday.bb