$15 000 fine for gun, ammo

After 27 months on remand, Kiron Carson Lashley was allowed to walk free on Friday after Justice Christopher Birch imposed a non-custodial sentence on him.

However, the 25-year-old Paradise Village, Christ Church resident has to pay the remaining $10 000 of a $15 00 fine for gun and ammunition possession in the next six months if he does not want to go back to the St Philip penal institution.

Lashley was required to pay $5 000 forthwith when he reappeared in Supreme Court No. 5A on Friday, after previously pleading guilty to having a .32 calibre pistol, seven rounds of ammunition and 10 grams of cannabis on July 6, 2021.

Prosecutor Romario Straker read a statement by Ricardo Roach, who said on the date in question, he had been giving Lashley a ride when he was pulled over by the police next to Dover Playing Field. The vehicle was searched by the officers who came across a backpack in the backseat where the weed, firearm and ammo were discovered.

Lashley admitted it was “just some weed he had to smoke”. Roach was asked if he knew about the gun, and he said, “No, the first time I ever saw this weed and gun was today when wunna find it. I don’t know anything about it other than that.”

When asked about the firearm, the now-convicted man admitted ownership and that he did not have a licence for the gun or a permit for the ammunition.

He was arrested and taken to the police station. There, he gave a “no comment” interview to the questions about where he found the gun, what he was planning to do with it, why he had not taken it to the police, where he kept the firearm, and if he left home with it.

Speaking to the court before the sentencing, Lashley expressed remorse for the offences and threw himself at the mercy of the court.

Listing the aggravating factors of the offence, including the fact that the gun was loaded and that cannabis was found, defence counsel Harry Husbands said that mitigating factors included that the pistol was a 1903 firearm whose production ended in 1945, and was “possibly a firearm you were more likely to catch tetanus from than to get a proper gunshot”. He added that the guy had not been used in any offences or criminal enterprise and it was now off the streets.

He suggested a starting point of seven years in prison for the self-employed farmer.

While Lashley has several previous convictions for minor offences that had been dealt with in the magistrates’ courts, Husbands said his mitigating factors of being remorseful and his early guilty plea outweighed the aggravating factors, and two years should be deducted from the initial sentence.

The attorney said that the discount due to his early guilty plea and the time spent on remand would bring his sentence to 13 months and, due to the delay in bringing the matter to trial, reduce this further to seven months. He submitted at this point that a fine of between $5 000 to $10 000 be imposed as an alternative sentence for the firearm-related charges. In addition, he asked that the cannabis charge be disposed of.

In his submission, Straker said the starting point should be eight years, noting aggravating factors of the gun being loaded with hollow point ammunition, which “can do more damage” to a person, that Lashley was on the public streets with it, and that it was in working order.

Regarding the offender, Straker said the aggravating and mitigating factors balanced themselves out. He said after the guilty plea discount and time spent on remand, this would leave the convicted man with 37 months in prison. The prosecutor was against any time being taken off for delay, saying the matter only took two years to be brought to trial.

He submitted that the alternative fine should be $10 000 for the firearm and $5 000 for the ammunition and recommended the convicted man be convicted, reprimanded and discharged for the drug offence.

“I wonder to myself, as always, how we are raising a generation, as one person put it, that can’t see to clean up around their room or see dirt around the house but can spy a firearm on the side of the road like Superman. It is something I do not get – how people cannot see when the country needs people to serve but sometimes in the dark at the side of the road, in the middle of a cane piece, they are drawn to find a firearm and ammunition,” Justice Birch said, adding that regardless of the vintage, the firearm was said to be in working order.

He agreed with the attorneys’ call for the alternative sentence, ordering Lashley to pay the $10 000 balance in six months or spend three years behind bars.

Advising the convicted man to learn from this lesson, Birch warned, “Next time you are going up, and you are going to stay up!”

Lashley was reprimanded and discharged on the cannabis charge.