Policeman denies stalking

A Policeman appeared at Magistrates? Court yesterday charged with stalking a woman, behaving in a threatening manner and using offensive gestures.

Pol. Cons. Robert Butterfield, 36, of Old Military Road, St. George?s, denies all three offences. He is accused of stalking between December 12 last year and June 22 this year.

The other two offences are alleged to have taken place in Texas Road, St. David?s on June 28. Butterfield was granted bail with a $1,000 surety. He is due to appear in court on October 24 in relation to the stalking charge and on November 11 for the other two matters.

Cleaned up soldier escapes prison sentence

A Bermuda Regiment soldier was spared prison yesterday after admitting possession of cannabis at Magistrates? Court.

Marcus Bean, 26, of Redcoat Lane, St. George?s, could have been jailed by Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner because he was already serving a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for failing to attend for military duty on 20 occasions last year.

Mr. Warner asked him why he should not send him to Westgate Prison after he admitted possession of 0.13 grams of cannabis and 0.55 grams of cannabis resin.

Bean had already been convicted of possession of the drug in 2003 and has not paid all of a $1,000 fine also imposed for the regimental offence.

?At the end of the day you have got a previous conviction so this is not a one-off matter,? said Mr. Warner. ?I already told you if you came before the court for any offence for 24 months what is likely to happen. I explained to you what a suspended sentence is.?

Bean told the court he had recently become a father, was holding down two jobs and was now performing his Regimental duties. ?You won?t see me in this court again,? he said. ?If it?s possible, can I get another chance, just one last chance please.?

Duty counsel Leo Mills said Bean was genuinely trying to better himself. ?There does not seem to me to be any purpose to be served by incarcerating him. There is an opportunity for the court to do whatever it can to try to assist this young man to stay on the straight and narrow path.?

Mr. Warner did not activate the suspended prison term but fined Bean $2,000 for the drug offences, which were committed in Devonshire in January. He has until August 1 to pay or will face a three-month jail term.

Man denies fishy crime

A man who denied stealing a large fish but admitted handling a stolen watch was remanded into custody to await sentencing last Thursday.

Tyrone Howard Darrell was charged with entering the Southampton home of Dana Bean as a trespasser and stealing a ten-pound grey snapper, a watch, a Motorola cell phone, two laptop computers and a digital camera. The haul from the break-in on June 1 amounted to $6,240.

Darrell, 41, denied the charge at Magistrates? Court but pleaded guilty to dishonestly receiving the watch, valued at $300, between June 1 and July 6. The Crown therefore offered no further evidence on the theft charges.

Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney told Senior Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo that Mr. Bean left his residence locked on June 1 but discovered when he returned that someone had broken in through an upstairs window.

On July 6, Police searched Darrell?s home on the Railway Trail in Sandys in relation to a separate matter, Mr. Mahoney added. A number of stolen items were found including the watch from Mr. Bean?s residence.

?The defendant was actually wearing the watch when the Police apprehended him,? said Mr. Mahoney. Darrell is presently on a two-year probation order handed to him at Supreme Court for breaking and entering. ?He seems to have a a history of breaking and entering dating back from 1978,? said Mr. Mahoney.

Defence lawyer Larry Scott said his client was prepared to help the Police with further information in relation to the watch, but had no knowledge of what happened to the other stolen goods.

He said Darrell was currently in a drug treatment programme and is ?before the courts in another place?.

He asked for his client to be given chance to go home and have a shower before being sentenced for handling the stolen watch.

However, Mr. Mahoney objected to the defendant being bailed, and Mr. Tokunbo remanded him into custody to come back before the court on July 28.

One offensive incident

A man who let rip with a string of expletives when Police officers stopped him on his birthday was reprimanded by a magistrate on Thursday.

Jamico Smith, a 30-year-old bar worker of Victoria Row, St. George?s, had pleaded guilty to using offensive words.

Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney said officers stopped the defendant, who was on a motorcycle, on Court Street on June 28 in relation to another matter.

He said that after being stopped, Smith said: ?F**k, what you stop me for? F**k this s**t. I don?t believe this s**t, f*****g a**holes. You?re a**holes all of you.?

When asked by Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo: ?So, how do you feel this morning?? the defendant replied: ?Alright. I felt I was being stopped for nothing. I was only riding through Court Street... I didn?t think I was doing any wrong. It was my birthday and I had things to do.?

Mr. Tokunbo told him the officers were only doing their job, and warned him not to react in a similar way in future. ?Use a bit of discretion next time. They stopped you for nothing, but you gave them something,? he said.

He gave Smith a six-month conditional discharge.

Fine for cannabis possession

A 50-year old St. George?s man was fined $300 after pleading guilty to possessing 0.33 grams of cannabis.

Ronald MacDonald O?Connor had been riding a motorcycle late in the night on April 12 this year when he was pulled over by an unmarked Police car, Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney told Magistrates? Court last Friday.

Police officers noticed that as they approached O?Connor he was smoking a ?home-made? cigarette which he dropped onto the ground and proceeded to stand on.

Police retrieved the cigarette and thought it smelled like cannabis.

Mahoney said the officers then searched O?Connor and found him to be in possession of a bag containing a brown plant material. The material was subsequently tested and found to be 0.33 grams of cannabis, which has a street value of less than $50.

O?Connor, of Bourne Drive, St. George?s, was ordered to pay a $300 fine by Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo.

Driving ban for construction worker

A man who drove while more than one-and-a-half times over the legal alcohol limit was handed a hefty fine and banned from the roads for a year last Thursday.

Duarte Bixo, a 31-year-old construction worker, does not speak English and required the assistance of an interpreter to translate his charges of impaired driving and having no driving licence into Portuguese. He then pleaded guilty to both offences, which he committed on June 24.

Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney said patrolling Police officers noticed the defendant?s auxiliary cycle driving in front of them on South Road in Paget at 2.16 a.m. on that date. Having seen the bike travelling from one side of the road to the other, the officers stopped Bixo, who is from Happy Valley Road, Pembroke.

Tests showed he had 137 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, when the legal limit is 80. Senior Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo fined him $800 and banned him from driving for a year for the driving while impaired charge. He fined him a further $100 for driving without a licence.