CHARLESTOWN, Nevis – FORMER policeman Jermaine Gaskin and his accomplice Anthony Francis were yesterday (May 5) sentenced to seven and four years jail respectively for armed robbery committed on Ernest Dover on May 29, 2008.
Before handing down the sentence to the two men, who were found guilty on April 8, 2009 in the High Court in Charlestown, Justice Ianthea Leigertwood-Octave told Gaskin that he had betrayed the faith entrusted in him as a member of the Federation’s Police Force.
“The weapon assigned to you to fight crime, you used it and committed a very serious crime. Robbery is not the answer to any economic situation.”
Justice Leigertwood-Octave also told Francis that he was not an innocent partner in the robbery since he played a role in relieving Dover of his belongings.
The men robbed Dover of two cellular phones, a watch, a pair of sunglasses, two Ipods, a back-pack and $120 while he was in the vicinity of the Bath cemetery.
Dover, who was the prosecution’s first witness, said the masked men had demanded he give them everything he had. He said one of them was brandishing a gun and, since he was scared, he willingly gave up everything.
Francis was arrested soon after the incident in the vicinity of the Crown Bakery in Stoney Grove, while Gaskin was taken into custody on May 30.
