A man who stole and damaged a length of telephone cable belonging to the Guyana Telephone and Tele-graph (GT&T) Company was on Tuesday sentenced to two years imprisonment when he appeared before Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
Dillon George pleaded guilty to the charges of simple larceny and malicious damage to property when they were read to him by the magistrate.
George admitted that on August 4 at Middle Street, Georgetown, he stole one length of telephone cable, the private property of GT&T. He also confessed that on the same day he damaged the said cable which is valued at $400,000.
The defendant was initially not required to plead to the indictable charges when they were read to him by the magistrate. Visibly frustrated, however, he begged the magistrate to be given a chance to enter his plea since he wanted the matter to be disposed of in a speedy manner. He added also that it was indeed he who had committed the unlawful acts.
“Meh worship, I want plead guilty to the charges cause is I do it and I want this matter done fast.”
Magistrate Octive-Hamilton explained to the defendant that he was not required to plead to the charges at that stage. Determined not to waste his or the court’s time, however, the unrelenting George kept pleading with the magistrate to be given a chance to admit his guilt.
The magistrate eventually requested the prosecution’s application of the Administra-tion of Justice Act (AJA) which allowed for the defendant to enter his plea.
Having applied the AJA, the magistrate informed the defendant that she was going to re-read the charges so that he could have a chance to enter his plea.
After he pleaded guilty to the charges, the magistrate asked him if he wanted to say anything else and the unrepresented George just calmly requested the court’s lenience, noting that he had no previous brushes with the law.
“I would like to ask fuh a reasonable penalty cause I never come this far,” George said.
No representative of the telephone company was present in court.
In giving the facts of the case, Prosecutor Stephen Telford told the court that on the day in question at approximately 1:00 am security guards attached to GT&T in the vicinity of Middle Road, La Penitence saw a length of telephone cable detached from a pole on which it was installed.
The security guards subsequently realized that the defendant was burning the piece of cable and they extinguished the fire and took possession of the cable.
They then took the cable and the defendant to the Ruimveldt Police Station where George was later charged.
