A High Court judge wants to see legislative changes that would encourage people before the court on gun charges to provide information that would help trace the origin of illegal firearms used in their crimes.
Justice Christopher Birch expressed that desire on Friday as he, like several other judges presiding in the current Criminal Assizes, handed down a sentence in yet another gun-related case.
Noting that there was no evidence of where the gunman before him, Kiomal Akeem Forde, got his weapon, Justice Birch said: “I yearn for the day where we may well revisit our applicable laws where we also factor in the possibility that an accused person not only hands up the firearm but gives us the line that we can trace that firearm back to where it came from. But that would await another time and more developments in the law.”
Justice Birch imposed a starting ten-year jail sentence on Forde, of Crab Hill, St Lucy, for an aggravated burglary he committed at the age of 16.
Given the 64 months he had spent on remand, the one-third deduction for his guilty plea, and additional deductions for the delay in his case, the convict was able to go home on Friday given that he had served his sentence.
Forde, who is now in his early 20s, robbed Rashid Hinds at gunpoint on March 10, 2017, taking from him a haversack, gold chain and ring, a cellular phone, and a pair of pants, all valued at $3 000.
Hinds, according to Senior State Counsel Oliver Thomas, was liming on the block with other men when a masked Forde made the hit.
“There is a reason why matters of this nature draw the sentences they do. Parliament clearly understood, as any right person should, that a person who works hard and earns their belongings should not be relieved of those belongings at gunpoint,” Justice Birch said.
Maintaining that a country such as Barbados which was founded on the rule of law “should not turn into a shooting gallery”, he added: “There is no reason for anyone outside of the security forces to have, use or carry a firearm, or ammunition, or explosives.”
In pointing to mitigating factors in her client’s case, defence attorney Latisha Springer noted that no one was hurt in the commission of Forde’s crime, despite the use of the intrinsically dangerous weapon.
However, Justice Birch said there was no solace in that fact.
“It is facile to think that because somebody was not fired upon [or] injured in the course of a robbery that, therefore, they suffered no injury. I want everyone present and everyone on the island to disabuse themselves of this.
“There is no more unsettling feeling than looking down the barrel of a gun, whether it is genuine or imitation, and I speak from hard experience. There is nothing more unnerving, more traumatic than to be menaced by a firearm by persons who demonstrate by their conduct that they fully intend to use it if people do not comply with their demands, and to think otherwise is to fly in the face of human nature,” the judge said.
“No one should ever think that the trauma is less simply because the villain does not pull the trigger. So, I cannot accept the contention that because he was not injured he is unaffected. . . . That cannot possibly represent fairness, justice, or legal proposition that we should adopt in these courts.”
The judge also dismissed the notion that Forde’s crime was opportunistic.
“The acquisition of a firearm is a plan. You don’t just go into a supermarket and pick up a firearm, you don’t get one from a country store. That is something that you must plan on because it implies that you know where to acquire a firearm and you know enough about its use to menace somebody,” Justice Birch maintained.
fernellawedderburn@barbadostoday.bb
