(Barbados Nation) Homeowners must be able to leave their homes locked or unlocked and come back and find their property intact.
“Homeowners must be able to live in a society,” said Justice Randall Worrell, “in which they must be able to close their homes, leave, do all they have to do, and come back and find their property intact.”
The judge was speaking as he dealt with burglar and illegal immigrant Dorwin Lyght who was back before him for sentencing in the No. 5 Supreme Court on Monday.
Lyght, 29, an illegal Guyanese who has no fixed place of abode here, pleaded guilty earlier this year to breaking into Michan King’s Sea View, St James home and stealing $100 on February 18.
Justice Randall Worrell, who sentenced Lyght to two years in prison and ordered that it should run from the date of conviction, told him he had considered the guilty plea, the fact that Lyght had been on remand for “close to a prison year”, that he had a relatively clean record, but that he drew a knife when confronted by the home’s owner.
“The court’s position is that you should have left as soon as you saw the person,” the judge said. “But the court accepts you didn’t have the knife drawn on entry and you only drew the knife, in effect, when you were cornered. It does not excuse you but I have to take that into consideration.”
The judge went to say: “Burglary is a serious offence which is only justified by a custodial sentence. Entry into someone’s house is something the court frowns upon.”
Referring to Lyght’s pre-sentencing report, the judge said there were many people who did not have an easy life but they did not end up committing crime.
“You have to treat people’s property how you would like them to treat yours. You have to see it and leave it. I’m sure if you had gone and begged someone for something to eat, they would have given you something,” the judge said.
Lyght was represented by Andrew Pilgrim.
Crown Counsel Lancelot Applewhaite, who had earlier outlined the facts, said King was walking through his dining room door when he heard someone trying to unlock his back door.
When Lyght broke in, King asked him what he was doing there, to which Lyght replied: “Nothing.”
The homeowner went into the kitchen and Lyght ran behind him, taking out a knife on the way.
But King took up a cutlass, struck Lyght on the head, and they started to fight.
King placed Lyght in a neck lock, but Lyght grabbed a screwdriver and started stabbing at King over his shoulder.
A neighbour intervened, removed the screw driver from Lyght’s hand and called police.
King then used his weight to subdue Lyght until lawmen got there. Lyght was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he received 27 stitches for injuries.
He confessed to police he wanted something to eat and, noticing that nobody was at home, he went into the house.
He added that he was about to open the fridge when he heard the side door open. Lyght further told them he tried to escape through the back door, but finding it locked, he attacked King when he came into the kitchen.
