From the Courts
February 3, 2017
Teenaged boys charged with armed robbery

Two 15-year-old boys were brought before the Serious Offences Court yesterday, in relation to a daring daylight robbery that occurred on Monday.

The teenagers, who are from Vermont and Richland Park respectively, allegedly robbed two PH Veira & Co Ltd employees outside of the First Caribbean International Bank in Kingstown.

Although Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias cleared the court yesterday because of the accused boys’ ages, SEARCHLIGHT has confirmed that they are charged with the possession of a firearm with intent to commit an offence, and that they, being armed with a gun, robbed Dwight Ryan of Choppins of one black bag valued at $35 that contained EC$34,700 in cash, along with three cheques valued at EC$2,165, a total value of EC$36,950, the property of PH Veira and Co Ltd.

One of the boys is charged separately with conspiracy to commit robbery.

Reports are that two male employees, one with a bag containing cash and another who accompanied him, were walking between vehicles parked outside the entrance of the bank when the robbery occurred.

Two men approached the employees, one pointed a gun at the employee who had the bag with the cash and demanded that he hand it over. The other robber grabbed the bag and the two men escaped.

This is the second daylight robbery that occurred in that vicinity in recent times. In 2013, a police officer was shot when he tried to stop a robbery at the Postal Corpo­ration, which saw robbers escaping with EC$100,000 in cash.

No one was physically hurt during Monday’s robbery. (AS)