Jury rejects young man’s defence of misidentification in aggravated burglary case

A New Montrose man’s attempt to establish a case of misidentification fell through last Friday, when he was found guilty for committing aggravated burglary against a retired principal.

This verdict was handed down to Kenroy Bibby, 23 on October 13 at High Court #2 before Justice Rickie Burnett.

Bibby was charged that on August 7, 2021 at New Montrose, he trespassed into the house of Antoinette Jardine while being armed with a cutlass, and stole $3,600.

In fact Bibby argued that he never saw Jardine before the trial, neither did he knew where in New Montrose she resides.

“You have to know what you see,” he told Jardine during his cross-examination of her.

Jardine told the court that on the night of the offence at around 7:30 pm, she was at home with her 90-year-old father and 81-year-old mother who were staying with her at the time.

While her mother was in the kitchen and her father was in the bathroom, a young man walked into her house with a cutlass in his left hand and his face unmasked.

“I screamed,” Jardine said, adding that she was fearful for her mother after realising that the person was “a total stranger”.

She said that the man went directly to the dining table, picked up her purse, opened it with his right hand, looked at the money then closed it back.

Her mother then came to where the burglar was and asked, “Who are you?” However, the burglar just looked at her mother without saying anything, then walked out with Jardine’s purse.

He then opened the purse again by using one hand to unzip the wallet and placing the purse against his body. He took out $3,600, threw the purse on the ground, went out to the verandah and disappeared; and through it all, held his cutlass in his hand.

But “people look like people,” Bibby argued, after Jardine told the court that the man she saw was small, clear in complexion, skinny and “not muscular”.

In fact, he called on his younger brother Keevin Bibby as an alibi to prove that he was at home when the offence was committed.

Keevin said that at 3’o clock on the afternoon in question, he left home where Kenroy was to play football with a group friends on a road in New Montrose.

After spending three hours with his friends, He returned home and spent the night watching movies with Kenroy, but struggled to remember his friends’ names.

However, Crown Counsel Cornelius Tittle opined that Keevin’s story was fabricated, and an attempt to aid his brother’s case.

The mixed nine-member jury seem to have agreed because after just one hour and five minutes of deliberating, they found Kenroy guilty of committing aggravated burglary against Jardine.

Tittle was granted time to submit a written summation of the case. Sentencing will therefore take place on November 3.