Campden Park man jailed for handling stolen goods

FOUR MONTHS IN jail for handling four seemingly stolen speaker boxes did not leave one spirited 34-yearold feeling down.

Winfield Sam hastened into the dock this Wednesday to answer a charge of handling stolen goods, on April 30, in Clare Valley.

“Me guilty with an explanation,” he immediately told Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett. He said he found the speaker boxes in some bags and he had told the police that. “Me nah tief nobody ting,” he said, while simultaneously saying “me tek them out and try see if me could mek a money,” and sell them to the “van man” and the “town man”. He said as it relates to the charge and the police, “them for dash wey that.”

The Questelles police motored down to Clare Valley Monday after some information was given to them, and they met the defendant pushing a wheelbarrow. A search was requested, and allowed. Upon pulling back the cover of the wheelbarrow, the officers discovered the four speaker boxes.

“Officer ah found them,” he offered as an explanation to the police. Sam was questioned further as to where he found them, which was apparently met with silence. It was also stated that the defendant never gave a statement. “Them never ask me!” Sam burst out.

Briefly noting that Sam had a record, the matter was stood down for a while. When Sam was called back, he answered to his name, saying “Yes, boss”, to the Senior Magistrate.

As soon as he climbed into the dock again, he took off with “Man me tell you the truth,” addressing the Senior Magistrate.

“Not ‘man’… have some respect,” Burnett told him.

“Yes, boss,” Sam answered quickly, which he ditched in exchange for “Yes, sir”, after being told off by the court officer in front the dock.

He began his story by saying he had the items for six, seven days and that a woman had called the police. His story was told with a lot of expression and even on one occasion, a sound effect.

He said when he saw the items there he thought, “Some man ah eat food and left ting there.”

“If you shake them (the speaker boxes) out you could see cockroach eat them out,” as well as rats, the defendant insisted.

He said he was going to mash the speaker boxes up, take them apart and sell them.

When his record was brought to the fore again, he responded, “Yeah I have a record…that’s just me. The record not really say nothing,” Sam indicated, saying that it was just written to look big.

However, Prosecutor Corlene Samuel recommended jail time.

The sentence handed down to the defendant was four months imprisonment, which he responded to by saying, “Me go and relax myself.”

He was immediately taken to his second court date for the day in the court upstairs, the Serious Offence Court. While being taken upstairs he displayed antics to the journalists, by kicking up his legs, saying not to take his picture, and requesting that they pay for to get his photograph.

A trial date was set for May 30 for a charge of possession of 2,374g of cannabis with intent to supply, on February 1, in Chateaubelair, before he was taken away to prison.

The unconcerned defendant tried to eat some bread from the bag he was carrying with some of his possessions in the Serious Offences Court room. He was unsuccessful in his mission twice, the court officer catching him on both occasions. He finally got a chance to eat the bread while waiting for prison transport in the holding cell.

WINIFIELD SAM lifts his leg as he exits the Kingstown Magistrate Court