Drinks thief jailed

A Vermont man who “crippled” a vendor’s business by stealing several cases of drinks from her, has been imprisoned.

Kamal Small, along with another man, was sentenced to jail by Magistrate John Ballah at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, November 15.

They both pleaded guilty that between November 15 and 16, 2022 at Kingstown, they stole one case of Village Ram Energy Drink valued EC$76.00; one case of Big Busta Soft Drink valued EC$54.00; one case of Small Busta Soft Drink valued EC$40.00; one half case of Guinness valued EC$58.75; one case of Hairoun Beer valued EC$68.50; six bottles of Coco Cola valued EC$23.00; and one half case of Hairoun soft drinks valued EC$21.00 – a total value of EC$341.25, the property of Alison Charles of Evesham.

On Wednesday, November 15 2022 around 7:30 am, Charles secured her fridge which contained a quantity of drinks, to a cart, then covered and tied them.

On the following day around 9 am, Charles returned to her cart and discovered that the rope had been removed. She checked the fridge and noticed that the drinks that she left were missing. As a result, she made a report to the police.

During the investigation into the matter, PC 987 Jack obtained CCTV footage of the incident and noticed the two defendants moving the drinks from the fridge. On the next day, about 7:30 pm, Jack met Small’s co-offender at the Central Police Station, informed him of the report that he was investigating, showed him the footage, and cautioned him in the presence of PC 98 DaSilva.

He gave a statement admitting to the offence, and identified himself on the footage. He was later charged. On April 4, 2023 around 1:00 pm, Jack met Small at CID and informed him of the offence. Jack cautioned Small, who later identified himself on the footage and admitted to the offence. He was later charged.

The items have not been recovered.

The magistrate began the sentencing at four months, which is 20 per cent of two years, the maximum sentence for theft.

Aggravating of the offence was that the drinks were likely disposed for monetary gain and so two months were added to the sentence. There were no mitigating factors of the offence.

There were no mitigating factors of Small in this offence, as he has had previous convictions, and so two months were added to his sentence. However, his co-offender had no antecedents before the court and so, one month was deducted from his sentence.

Small’s co-offender was granted a one-third discount for submitting a guilty plea to the offence, however, Small was only offered a one-quarter discount for having the court “back and forth.” Small was sentenced to six months in prison to run concurrently with a sentence he was already serving while his co-offender was sentenced to three months and 10 days in prison.

The co-offender had been remanded in custody for four months, so he walked out of the courtroom a free man, after having already served his prison sentence.