Trio convicted of armed robbery

Three men who forced a security guard to give them the PIN to his bank account in order to withdraw his money on Christmas Day 2015, have all been jailed.

Last Wednesday, April 17, Osbourne “Bernard” Brudy, Terron “Terror” Prince and Bradley “Brad” Huggins were sentenced for the armed robbery of Kevorn Skinner of Belair, with two of these men receiving sentences just under 10 years.

The men were convicted by a nine member jury on April 10 for the robbery, but a not guilty verdict was returned on a charge of abduction connected to the same incident.

Justice Brian Cottle reviewed the facts before sentencing the trio, as well as the case which had been presented by the Director of Public Prosecutions (Acting) Sejilla McDowall.

It was said that on that Christmas morning, Skinner, a security guard working with Allied Security, had just finished his shift at his post in Edinboro. It was difficult to get home because very few minibuses were working on the public holiday. While he was waiting, Skinner was approached by Prince and Huggins, who told him that Brudy would be able to give him a lift home, in return for payment.

Skinner offered them the $3 he had in one of his pockets, but feeling that that wasn’t enough, they demanded that he hand over everything he had. Therefore, the $60 that was in his other pocket, his bag containing his phone and charger, and his debit card were taken by them as well.

The evidence that the prosecution tried to establish was that the defendants had forced Skinner to get into the car, but the jury returned a non guilty verdict for kidnapping.

The trio and the security guard drove to the Bank of St Vincent and the Grenadines(BOSVG) in Kingstown. There, they extracted the PIN number for the debit card from Skinner by threatening him with a knife placed against his throat.

Two of the men withdrew money from the bank, and were captured on CCTV, as the police would later discover. On the first occasion, $200 was withdrawn, and on the second $300 was collected.

Afterwards, the men drove to Spirit’s Bar and Skinner told them he wanted to urinate, using the cover so that he could leave the bar and go to the police station to make a report.

Brudy, the driver, was the first to be arrested by the police, as they found him and the car while they were on patrol. He directed them to $300 in the glove compartment of the vehicle.

During the trial the three men all tried to minimize their role in the incident.

Brudy was the luckiest of all, as with no previous convictions, it was considered that he had a good prospect for rehabilitation.

Since he had spent three months already on remand, Brudy’s final sentence was seven years and nine months.

Prince had also spent three months in jail and this was subtracted from his 10-year sentence, leaving a remainder of nine years, nine months to be served.

Huggins had spent the least amount of time in jail to date, having been on remand for a single week. His final sentence was nine years, 11 months and three weeks.