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alexk
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A mechanic will serve the next eight years and three months in jail for the role he played in a day of violent terror against a Debe family.
However, the family’s patriarch pundit Chaitram Harrygobin was not happy with the court’s sentence which he found too lenient.
Harrygobin was of the view that the prisoner, Kevin Joseph, also called Kevon, should have received consecutive sentences for his crime, which would have resulted in him serving 19 years and 11 months in jail.
Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas had ordered that the sentences for each of the five counts of robbery with aggravation run concurrently.
Joseph pleaded guilty to the charges in April, in the San Fernando Second Criminal Court.
The State’s case was that around 11 am on December 8, 2006, Joseph and his three accomplices held up Harrygobin’s rental business, which was operated from his home at Congo Village, Ramai Trace, Debe.
Two of the bandits pretended to be customers interested in renting a vehicle.
One of the robbers put a gun to employee Sheriada Hosein’s head and announced a hold-up.
They then took her into the house where they met Harrygobin’s wife, Vindy Maharaj, in the kitchen. Two of the men then went into the living room where they found Harrygobin’s mother, Ramdaye Chankar, 65, and his two children, ages two and three.
When the children began to scream, one robber suggested that they put a pillow over their mouths and squeeze it. Instead, the children’s mother and grandmother were ordered to stop them from screaming, otherwise, the children would be shot.
As Harrygobin returned home he heard his mother scream out to him and when he looked through a window, he saw his mother and children being held at gunpoint.
He ran to his vehicle and his driver drove off. The robbers went in pursuit of him. Harrygobin went through the village raising an alarm. Some of the residents were threatened by the robbers at gunpoint.
One resident Dennis Isaac was robbed of his car. The police were alerted and Joseph was eventually arrested along the SS Erin Road, Debe.
His attorney, Anisah Sankar, told the court Joseph was remorseful and had turned his life around.
In passing sentence, the judge noted Joseph had offered to apologise to the victims.
Joseph had pending matters but no previous convictions.
State attorney Trevor Jones asked the court to send a message that this type of behaviour would not be tolerated. He said these types of invasions and violent crimes were too prevalent in the country.
The judge said: “The victims and some of the people living in the area were subjected to what can only be described as a significant period of violence with terror.”
The five months Joseph spent in pre-trial custody and one-third credit for his guilty were deducted from each of his sentences.
Speaking afterwards, Harrygobin said, “I am not happy based the concurrent sentences because of the trauma and stress my family and I went through. It should have been consecutive. But I respect the court’s decision.”
He said after the robbery he closed down his business. His mother died in 2014.