BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – HIS Lordship Justice Errol Thomas on Monday (Mar. 28) sentenced Jermaul Jules to six years in prison for robbing a British tourist couple at Rawlins Plantation Inn on January 14, 2009.
Justice Thomas said the sentence must run consecutively with a 2010 three-year jail term that he is currently serving for larceny.
A 12-member jury had found the 23-year-old St. Paul’s resident guilty on March 3, 2011 after the prosecution team, led by Rhonda Nisbett-Browne, had proven to the court that he did rob David Rogers and his wife who were visiting St. Kitts at the time.
Evidence presented at the Basseterre High Court stated that at around midnight on the date of the incident, Jules had entered the room in which Rogers was staying at Rawlins Plantation Inn and, with a machete, threatened him and his wife and left the couple traumatised after robbing them of EC$400 and a BlackBerry phone.
It was also stated in court told that he told the couple he would kill them if they had intentions of reporting the incident to the police.
Rogers was unable to give sufficient description of the perpetrator to the police, but while patrolling in St. Paul’s on January 17, 2009, officers had observed Jules outside his home with a bag in his hand.
He was formally arrested and charged on January 18, 2009 after police were patrolling in St. Paul’s the day before and observed the suspicious accused outside his home with a bag in his hand.
The court was told that Jules had placed the bag near the front of his home and went back into the building. On his return, the officers grabbed him and he tried desperately to escape their grasp. However, a search of the bag revealed a cellular phone similar to the one reported stolen from the Rogers.
Jules was formally arrested and charged on the following day.
At his sentencing hearing, Jules told the court that he was convicted of a crime he did not commit and ask for leniency. However, Justice Thomas rebuked him and told him not to waste the court’s time.
The judge told him that he had caused terror and trauma to the couple by entering their room at midnight armed with a machete, adding that “the crime was carefully planned and executed and your actions have affected the entire country”.
