Youngster jailed for 7 years for robbing woman at gun point

For robbing a woman of her purse and valuables at gun point, a youngster will be jailed for seven years.

These terms were decided at the High Court last Friday by Justice Brian Cottle, who handed down the sentence to Nigel Cain of Rockies.

The youngster had pleaded guilty to robbing Latisha Williams, also of Rockies at gunpoint on November 17, 2017, and relieving her of items valued at $1184.50.

The stick up happened at Sion Hill when Williams was making her way to work at 5 am, and was on her way to catch a van. She passed Cain while she was walking.

As she stood with her cellphone in hand, Cain approached Williams and took it from her.

“She wondered for a while if it was a joke,” Cottle recalled, a joke that someone she knew was playing on her. However, when she looked up, matters were much more serious than she had imagined. Cain pointed a gun at her and demanded her handbag, before making off with the belongings.

The young defendant said very little other than that he was very sorry, and that he’s since learned, “you feel good when you have your own thing and not someone else’s.”

The acting Director of Public Prosecutions(DPP) Sejilla McDowall indicated that Cain had already been imprisoned for 10 months and 27 days.

While the robbery was thought not to be the worst by Justice Cottle, the fact that a gun was used exacerbated matters.

Forty per cent of 30 years, which is the maximum for the offence, was determined as the adequate starting point by Justice. Therefore, 12 years imprisonment was the draft figure which Cain was looking at.

It was an uphill climb from there after the aggravating features were worked into the formula. Cain’s record was already formidable, with burglary, wounding and robbery convictions to his name.

Further, he had possession of a gun in a public road.

On the other hand, the police had recovered all the items on the day in question. The defendant was young at the time of the offence, and the social inquiry report revealed that he had “some challenges” in his early years, which may have caused him to stray from the straight and narrow. In his early teenage years he left his grandmother’s house and it is suggested that things went downhill from there.

No violence was used in the attack.

All of these considerations took the sentence back down to 12 years.

Further subtractions were made for the guilty plea, which is the standard one third discount, and for time spent on remand.

Seven years was the final figure arrived at.

The judge told Cain that he hoped that while he was in prison that he would continue his education, so his situation would be better when he was released.