Judge queries where illegal guns are coming from

A High Court judge on Friday expressed the hope that convicted gun offenders would someday confess about where they get their illegal weapons from.

As he ordered Zareq Amir Pierre Grant, of Farm Path, Hillaby, St Thomas, to pay a total of $26 000 in fines for possession of a .38 calibre revolver and one round of ammunition, Justice Christopher Birch said he was puzzled about where the guns were coming from and how they were getting into people’s hands.

“I cannot ever seem to get a single firearm accused to stand up at the dock and tell me where it came from, who he got it from and that is a factor that we dare not overlook,” he said.

“But one of these days, rest assured, one of the questions you will be asked along the way will be . . . . Where did you get it from? And if the answer is not forthcoming in an honest manner, it is going to be something that will be taken into consideration,” Justice Birch added.

He also dismissed the belief that first-time gun offenders will get automatic non-custodial sentences from the courts.

“I think we need to be very careful as we deal with these matters, because there seems to be a growing sense out there [that if] you get caught with the firearm once, if you get caught with ammunition once, it is automatic that a non-custodial sentence will come down the pipe. That is a fallacy and I want to make that abundantly clear to everyone in this country because it depends on the circumstances,” the judge explained.

In Grant’s case, police executed a search warrant at his residence on September 11, 2017.

Officers went to a bedroom which the then 18-year-old identified as his, Senior Crown Counsel Oliver Thomas told the court, and Grant pointed lawmen to a chest of drawers where a plastic bag was found. The bag was examined and found to contain marijuana and a bullet, and during a further search, the gun was found in the same area.

“I would just like to ask for forgiveness for the mistake I made in the past. Sitting down listening to the prosecutor reading it out, it feels like I am experiencing the nightmare over again, and whatever consequences that I might face I ask you to be as lenient as possible,” Grant told Justice Birch on Friday in Supreme Court No 5a.

Thomas and defence attorney Angella Mitchell-Gittens made submissions on sentencing and agreed that a fine would match Grant’s crime, given that the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating ones.

While Justice Birch accepted the submissions, he did have some concerns.

He pointed out that Grant was not like the usual set of accused who came before the court on such matters.

“I normally hear about broken homes, I normally hear about educational challenges, financial handicaps, and dysfunctional families. . . . Much has been given to you – home, stable family, roof over your head, [and] a superior education . . . ,” the judge said.

“Yes, I heard what a good boy you were, what a good man you are, but my query is, does a good boy or a good man obtain narcotics, a firearm and ammunition and keep at home where his loving family are . . . ?

“One thing you do have in common with everybody who [appears] in court is that you want to do wrong but then turn around when the vice starts to be turned and twisted and you want leniency, you want mercy . . . .”

Justice Birch highlighted that Grant had several factors going in his favour, including his “98 per cent” cooperation given to police and his previously clean record.

“But the mitigating factors still have to take into account the aggravation that you had a firearm – a tool that has one purpose and that is to main, disfigure, disable or deprive someone of their life.

“Based on what I heard of your upbringing, you were not in any danger. It wasn’t that you were on the front line of a battle; it was not that you were a member of the uniform or security services. So what right did you have with a firearm? Even that one round of ammunition in that firearm, [fired] at somebody accurately, takes away their fundamental right to life.”

The illegal gun and ammunition no longer being on the streets was a good thing, the judge added.

“ . . . But here is where the two per cent comes in. You cooperated with the police, you wrote your statement. I see nowhere in the file where you indicated, even now, where you got it [the gun] from, and that’s a serious thing because it is not a case where you found it lying by the side of the road, I am sure,” he said.

Grant was fined $25 000 to be paid in six months for the gun possession, with the alternative of four years in prison. For the bullet, he was ordered to pay $1 000 in six months or spend one year in jail. Both prison terms would run concurrently.