AN 18-year-old high school dropout was on Tuesday ordered to do four weeks community service by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan after confessing to having committed robbery with violence as charged.

Omar Kenneth confessed that on December 1, 2018 at Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, while being in the company of another and using personal violence, he robbed Sohan Bridgelall of two cellphones valued at $30,000.
“I’m not a person like this; I never been in no police situation before,” he said, adding that he lives alone in Sophia and has no family.

“I ain’t see my mother since last year June, and my father never signed for me,” the teen said boldly when questioned by the chief magistrate about his family background.
He also explained that he has had to drop out of high school while in Form Three, and that the only place he could have found work at the time was at a wash bay and on the Stabroek Market wharf.

For shelter, the youngster said he stayed by a friend’s house on ‘A’ Field Sophia. “I does sleep there in the night, and guh to work in the morning,” Kenneth said.
Police Prosecutor Gordon Mansfield told the court that on the day in question at around 10:00hrs, Bridgelall was approached by the teen and while his accomplices held him by the neck, he (Kenneth) relieved Bridgelall of his belongings.

He said that on raising an alarm, an off-duty policeman who was nearby hurried to Bridgelall’s rescue and apprehended the teen a short distance away.
Besides ordering him to do community service at the City Constabulary, the chief magistrate also placed Kenneth under the supervision of a probation officer so he could be counselled.