Nine months in prison after suspended sentence breach

A St Michael man who admitted to criminal damage and trespassing will spend nine months in prison after breaching a previously suspended sentence.

Admitting to three charges of criminal damage and one of trespassing, Don Andre Orlando Phillips of Lower Burney told the court that his head did not “always work right” and asked to be sent to the Psychiatric Hospital. 

But he will spend the next nine months at Dodds Prison after admitting to damaging a window belonging to Tricia Gittens on March 2 and again on November 5, loitering on the premises of Richard Barrow after being forbidden to do so on September 29, and damaging a motor vehicle belonging to Caroline Morris on October 29. 

Prosecutor Sergeant Kenmore Phillips told the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ that Gittens had parked her vehicle on both dates in her driveway and was inside the house when she heard a loud bang and found that her windows had been shattered. 

On the loitering charge, the court heard that in 2017, Barrow had returned home to find accused Phillips asleep in one of the bedrooms and, fearing for his family’s safety due to the accused’s mental challenges, ordered him to stay away from his property. But, on September 29, Barrow returned home from work and found him standing in his driveway. The accused told him that he wanted to get some water. Police were called, but the accused man left the area when they arrived. 

The court also heard that Morris had left her car beside her house and heard a loud noise, and on looking outside, she saw the accused, whom she knew, running away. When she checked, she saw a large dent in one of the car doors. 

The prosecutor told the court that earlier this year, another magistrate had given Phillips a three-month sentence for criminal damage, but suspended it for a year. 

Phillips told Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes: “I don’t do these tings for purpose. I sorry about what I do. I don’t know what does be wrong with my head but people does be provoking me.”

“It’s because you don’t take your medication,” said the magistrate. 

“I gine do my best and take it. I don’t want to go to prison. Can I not go to the mental?” Phillips asked. 

But the chief magistrate told him that he would receive treatment in prison. 

Informing him that the breach had triggered the three-month suspended sentence, the chief magistrate ordered him to serve six months for the damage to Morris’ vehicle, to run consecutively. He was also given six months for the other damage matters to run concurrently and was convicted, reprimanded and discharged for the loitering.