A 50-year-old man who stormed into a house wielding a machete was the first person in Bermuda to be convicted of a blackmail charge yesterday.

Leigh Eugene Hall pleaded guilty to blackmail and the Crown offered no evidence to his three other charges — aggravated burglary and depriving Tiago Madeira and Stephanie Botelho of their liberty.

Hall was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment at Supreme Court yesterday. Prosecutor Robert Welling told the court that Hall went to a residence on Abbot's Cliff Road, Hamilton Parish, on August 15, 2007, and forced his way into the home while brandishing a machete.

He demanded $1,000 from the couple in the residence. The defendant then bundled the couple into a car and forced them to withdraw money from an ATM at the Crawl Hill gas station. Mr. Madeira withdrew $150 before grabbing Ms Botelho from the vehicle and running away from Hall.

The court heard that Hall used threatening language to induce the complainants to pay over a sum of money to him or he would have revealed an element of complicity of the complainants.

The court did not hear any details about the alleged complicity of Mr. Madeira or Ms Botelho. Hall has previous criminal convictions, including one for a violent offence, and has been to treatment for a drug addiction, though his social inquiry report stated that he was still abusing drugs.

Mr. Welling recommended that the defendant be incarcerated for three to five years for the offence.

Hall's lawyer, Llewellyn Peniston, told Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons, that his client had pleaded guilty at the earliest convenience and had not harmed anyone. He recommended that Hall be given a suspended sentence of two years.

Mrs. Justice Simmons said: "There is no doubt that there was psychological terror induced in this case. The court does not see a way of reducing the sentence to anything less than two years and six months, which is what you shall be sentenced with."

"The court will order that you attend a drug programme to be determined by prison officials."