Twenty-five-year-old Deolachan Ramnarran who was caught red-handed on video stealing three gas bottles from a supermarket late last week was on Monday sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for his crime.
After spending the weekend in Police custody, Ramnarran, a mason, appeared before Magistrate Clive Nurse at the Wales Magistrate’s Court, where he pleaded guilty to the offence.
The man admitted that between June 22 and June 23, 2017, he stole the items at the People’s Choice Supermarket at Wales, West Bank Demerara which were valued $33,000, property of the establishment’s owner, Jin Lin.
On Thursday last, Jin had secured her business place, leaving 11 gas cylinders in a padlocked cage in the fenced compound. It was on Friday morning that Jin saw that the cage was prised open and the items missing.
Deolachan Ramnarran
She reported the matter and Police ranks reviewed the surveillance footage and the defendant was later identified. Guyana Times understands that the thief had returned to the establishment on Friday night and he was apprehended by community members before he was handed over to Police.
Giving an explanation for executing the theft, Ramnarran indicated that he did remove the articles, but the shop’s guard was in on the whole thing. Ramnarran told Magistrate Nurse that the guard solicited him to purchase a quantity of drugs and to carry out the robbery.
“He told me to go and buy drugs for him, and I go and park my bike and wait 10 minutes. He told me: ‘I want you to do this thing for me’…so I take out the three gas bottles and he tell me sell it, so I call a big man in town,” the defendant told the court.
The defendant went on to say that he was promised $10,000 by the contact in Georgetown. He, however, claimed that the man only paid him $7000 upfront while the remaining $3000 was to be allegedly paid over to the guard.
“I was influenced by the guard man,” the defendant told the court.
After the Magistrate heard the man’s story, he questioned Ramnarran, asking him if he was an easily-influenced person, but the defendant claimed he did not understand what Nurse was saying to him. Ramnarran, however, pleaded with the court for mercy and explained that his wife was in hospital expecting his child.
Magistrate Nurse indicated that the defendant should use his time in prison to consider what he told the court. The court took into consideration the fact that the shop owner’s items were not recovered, that Ramnarran sold the articles for $10,000 and that he was previously jailed on a narcotics offence. It was thereafter that the nine-month sentence was imposed.
