With Geeta Rampersaud

Linden man to serve sixty-month sentence for robbery-under-arms
–at end of five-month sentence for assault in court

WESLEY Griffith of Lot 283 Thomas Street, Mackenzie, Linden, recently jailed for five months for attacking virtual complainant Deryck Halley in Georgetown Magistrate Judy Latchman’s Court on June 20th last, was yesterday sentenced to sixty months’ imprisonment on a robbery-with-violence charge.

Magistrate Judy Latchman found the 19-year-old prisoner guilty as charged for an offence committed on the said 50-year-old self-employed Deryck Halley on June 26, 2013 at Lot 14 North Sophia, Greater Georgetown, when he used violence in robbing Halley of one motorcycle, one Blackberry cellular phone valued at $52,000, one Nokia cellular phone valued at $25,000, and cash amounting to $30,000, besides house keys. The accumulative

value of that robbery was $277,000.

Before handing down sentence, Magistrate Latchman told Griffith that what he had done last year was a terrible thing; and that after she had considered the prevalence and seriousness of the offence; the organized manner in which the offence was committed, in that Griffith pretended that he wanted to purchase the motorcycle; the need to prohibit both Griffith and others from contemplating or committing similar offences; she was sentencing him to sixty months’ jail, which he would commence after he had served the current five-month jail term imposed on him by Magistrate Geeta Chandan-Edmond for assaulting Halley in her court on June 20 last.

Before Magistrate Geeta Chandan-Edmond, Griffith had pleaded guilty to the assault charge, and had ascribed his behaviour to the effects of stress, even as he apologized for what he had done that day.

On June 20 last, in Magistrate Judy Latchman’s Court, Griffith had lunged from the prisoners’ dock and had attacked Halley, dealing the man several kicks and cuffs about his body before he was arrested and charged for the offence.

During that ruckus, Magistrate Latchman’s orderly had escorted her into her chambers, and another police rank had occupied himself in placing prisoners down the court chute. There were other prisoners in the dock, and there were also two other ranks in plainclothes in the court, who assisted to bring the situation under control.
He was unrepresented at that trial, prosecuted by Police Inspector Joel Ricknauth.
Griffith has at the Christianburg Court an ongoing $5M armed robbery matter allegedly committed at Amelia’s Ward in Linden along with Ruel Williams, 32, of Lot 657 Industrial Area, Mackenzie and Nellon Brummel, a 27-year-old porter of Lot 27 Lower Kara Kara, Linden.

Griffith faces six charges, along with his alleged accomplices, all of which allegedly occurred on Friday, January 31, at South Amelia’s Ward in Linden, where under arms they robbed a family of a car, cash and jewellery.