Magistrate: “It’s a lucky thing you didn’t hypnotize me!”

Senior Magistrate Donald Browne is lucky not to have fallen under the hypnosis of Cuthbert Edwards – a man who claims he hypnotizes his own sin.{{more}}

“It’s a lucky thing you didn’t hypnotize me or better yet, hypnotize what the law has to say,” Browne chuckled on Friday, at a sitting of the Kingstown Magistrates’ Court.

“I does hypnotize, but I does really hypnotize my own sins,” Edwards revealed, as the courtroom erupted with laughter.

Edwards was hauled before the court, charged for stealing a number of items including: four plastic barrels, a weed whacker, one toilet seat, 10 power tools and a 20-foot PVC pipe, all belonging to Isa Garrick, a retired nurse of New Montrose.

The total value of the items stood at EC$3,075.

The facts read out in court stated that Garrick employed Edwards as a gardener. However, she left her home, but before doing so secured the downstairs of the house, on October 5. It was not until October 23, she received a message stating that her home had been broken into. It is reported that she had stored the tools in the downstairs of her house.

Edwards, a resident of Cemetery Hill, pleaded guilty to the charges and was placed on a six-month bond in the sum of $2,500. In breach of his bond, he will go to prison for six months.

Edwards was also ordered to pay compensation of $1,588 in three months for five of the power tools that were not recovered. Failure to pay will result in a six month custodial sentence.