Two men have been jailed for life for the fatal shooting of Haile Outerbridge and Ricco Furbert inside the Belvin’s Variety store.

Christoph Duerr and Le-Veck Roberts were unanimously found guilty by a jury of the January 2013 double murder in April of this year.

Yesterday Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves ordered that both men would spend a minimum of 25 years in prison for the Belvin’s killings before they could be considered for parole. Additionally, Duerr, 26, and Roberts, 21, were sentenced to ten years in prison for using a firearm to commit the murders.

Roberts also received a one-year sentence for taking a vehicle without consent, while Duerr was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for possessing firearms and ten years for possessing ammunition. All the sentences are to run concurrently.

During the trial, prosecutors had alleged that Roberts was the gunman involved in the shooting, while Duerr served as an “armourer”, storing and supplying the firearm used in the shooting.

On the evening of January 23, 2013, Mr Outerbridge and Mr Furbert had been shopping at Belvin’s on Happy Valley Road.

Mr Furbert opened the door to leave, but then ran back inside, shouting, “They’re outside. They’ve got guns.”

Both he and Mr Outerbridge ran to a storeroom at the back of the shop. Security cameras showed a figure wearing a black, full-face helmet and blue clothes walk to the storeroom door with a firearm in his right hand.

Roberts was arrested by armed officers on January 25, 2013 after police received a report that the vehicle stolen from Curving Avenue on the night of the shooting was on the property.

Tests later revealed a single particle of gunshot residue (GSR) on his hand, along with a smattering of particles associated with the discharge of a firearm.

He was released on bail and left the country but was later extradited back to the Island to face the charges.

On January 28, 2013, officers surrounded Duerr’s home after receiving information that he had firearms stashed under his bed.

Duerr escaped, fleeing the house with the weapons, but a search of his home revealed live ammunition and photographs of several firearms.

He turned himself in the next day at the Somerset Police Station.

Months later, during a police interview, he admitted that he had held firearms for two separate people on occasion in the year before the shooting.

Duerr said that the day after the Belvin’s shootings, he received three firearms, including what he believed to be the weapon used in the double murder, but denied that he had the weapon before the attack. Taking the stand in his own defence, he said that he agreed to hold on to the firearms out of fear.

After yesterday’s hearing, Duerr’s lawyer Larry Mussenden told The Royal Gazette that he would be appealing against his client’s conviction as well as the sentence.

“We will be appealing against the sentence on the basis that the judge has erred in law on what the minimum tariff should be,” he said.

“In mitigation I suggested that the minimum tariff for my client should range between 15 and 17 years on the basis that on the Crown’s case he played a lesser role than Roberts and was simply the holder of the guns.

“It cannot be right in all common sense that the holder of the weapon is sentenced the same as the actual shooter.”

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