KEIRON Cummings, one of four prisoners who escaped from the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts Holding Cell on May 19 last, was on Monday sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on the escaping-from-lawful-custody charge.

The 26-year-old convict appeared before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry and pleaded guilty to the offence when it was read to him.

Details of the charge alleged that on May 19, at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts compound, while being in custody for pending robbery charges, he escaped from said custody.

Asked if he had anything to say, Cummings said he saw people going through the hole, and he also went through.

However, he was informed by the Chief Magistrate that, in his absence, an ex-parte trial had been conducted and he had been found guilty on three robbery charges.

He was sentenced to four years on each of those charges.

Police Corporal Bharat Mangru, prosecuting, said the facts are as detailed in the charge, and that the prisoner also has three pending robbery matters at the Georgetown Magistrates Courts and six other robbery charges at a court on the East Coast of Demerara.

Before handing down the sentence, the Chief Magistrate took into consideration the seriousness of the offence; the convict’s plea; saving the court’s time; and the other pending matters of similar nature.
The two-year imprisonment will run concurrently with the other jail term.

Along with this Sophia resident, three other prisoners had escaped that day. They are 28-year-old Vickram ‘Lil John’ Persaud, Steve Richard Bacchus, and Randolph Marks. Persaud, of Doctor Dam in La Grange, West Bank Demerara, was shot dead, allegedly during an armed confrontation with the police at Fort Wellington, West Coast Berbice.

Persaud had been charged with the murder of Constable Michael Cumberbatch of the Tactical Services Unit (TSU).

Bacchus, 21, was recaptured on May 19 along Brickdam in the vicinity of the court. He was charged with the murder of Police Special Constable Quincy Wright at Guyhoc Park, Georgetown on January 24 last.

Twenty–year–old Marks, who was charged with the murder of Patsan Trading employee, Bharrat Ramcharran, was found hiding under a bed in East La Penitence on May 20.