Very frightened accused taken on roller coaster ride

From an especially high jump-up, nothing sent a Georgetown man crashing faster than the possibility of going to jail for marijuana.

This was the harsh reality for Dexter Andrews after being hauled before the Serious Offences court on Monday. He had previously had psychedelic plans for last weekend at the Georgetown carnival.

Instead, on Saturday, at the carnival, he ended up being nabbed for weed, and on Sunday he spent his day in a holding cell.

Come Monday, he was charged with, on June 9, at Langley Park, having in his possession 119 grammes of cannabis.

Andrews, now a defendant, pleaded guilty to the offence and the facts were read to him.

The police explained that they were on patrol at the event last Saturday when they saw Andrews standing with a multi-coloured knapsack.

While the amount of drug involved made the offence comparatively insignificant and unlikely to attract a prison sentence, the defendant seemed to be very worried. Interjecting while the police were reading the facts, Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias, noticing the defendant’s nervous demeanour, asked him, “You ain’t get to jump up?”

The court then heard that the plain clothes officers had approached the defendant, and requested permission to search him. It was not until they examined his knapsack though that they found a black plastic bag with loose green material that appeared to be cannabis.

“Ah for me sell, times hard,” Andrews then reportedly told the police. He was arrested and taken to the Georgetown Police Station.

In his defence, however, Andrews said he wasn’t going to sell anything, but that he and his friends were in the jump-up and they had asked him if he had weed. He was going to give his friends some of the drug when the police came up.

“Me does smoke my honour,” Andrews said.
In considering what would be the sentence, Browne-Matthias commented that Andrews was about to “shake down [himself] from fright over there”.

Things started looking up again for the defendant when Senior Prosecutor Adolphus Delplesche, rose to withdraw the charge.

The unsure defendant started to leave the courtroom, while gesturing a salute to the prosecutor. In his haste and nervousness Andrews had forgotten his hat on his seat in the prisoners’ bay. When it was drawn to his attention by another prisoner he made a quick u-turn, scooped it up and left just as hastily.