Mother fined for hiding daughters who were wanted by police

A mother who almost a decade ago hid her two daughters in a wardrobe to prevent them from being captured by police has been fined for the offence in the No. 3 Supreme Court.

Appearing before Justice Carlisle Greaves, Barbara Rosita Bailey, of Grazettes Court, Grazettes St Michael, pleaded guilty that on July 26, 2015, knowing or believing that Tiffany Bianca Nakita Bailey and Shakira Krystal Bailey had “committed an arrestable offence of aggravated burglary, she did acts to impede their apprehension”.

Bailey, who was represented by attorney Shadia Simpson, first apologised for her daughters’ actions and then her own. She was fined $1 000.

Failure to pay would have resulted in her spending three months in prison.

Principal State Counsel Neville Watson, who prosecuted the case, told the court that in investigating an aggravated burglary case involving the two sisters, police officers went to their mother’s home.

When they executed a search warrant, they discovered the young women hiding in a large wardrobe in one of the bedrooms.

When asked to give an account of her daughters’ presence, their mother told the officers: “I don’t know how they were in there. I don’t know how they got in the house.”

She admitted knowing that they had been wanted by police, saying that their father had told her first, and then she had seen their pictures on television.