A contractor who allegedly robbed two persons of cash and other items and escaped from police custody was remanded to prison on Tuesday when he appeared before Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
Twenty-five-year-old Esan Lawrence of 14 Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, pleaded guilty to the charge of aggravated robbery of Lilouttie Ramdeo but he pleaded not guilty to the charges of escaping from lawful custody and robbery with violence of Chandradeo Mahadeo.
It is alleged that on July 25, Lawrence along with others robbed Ramdeo of a Blackberry cell phone, a shoulder bag containing cosmetics, her driver’s licence, a gold chain, one gold band and cash, all totalling $282,000 in value.
It is also alleged that on July 27 at Vreed-en-Hoop, Lawrence was in the lawful custody of a police officer pending a charge of robbery with aggravation when he escaped.
It is further alleged that on October 18, on America Street, Lawrence along with others robbed Mahadeo of a cell phone, a GBTI card and a quantity of cash, totalling $86,000 in value, and he also reportedly used violence during the robbery.
However Lawrence’s attorney, Adrian Thompson, stated at the time of the alleged escape in Vreed-en-Hoop, the arresting officers did not have any form of identification or a gun and referring to a document from which he read, he said that a crowd had gathered and thought the policemen were bandits. He further posited that his client was never in police custody. The defence counsel said further that two witnesses who were present in court could attest to the facts that the crowd had gathered to assault the police officers thinking they were bandits.
Thompson again reading from a document stated that the police officers who had attempted to arrest Lawrence should have brought along police from the Vreed-en-Hoop police station to do the arrest.
He stated that he was informed that no identification parade was ever done and he does not understand why it is only now that the police have charged his client with offences that were allegedly committed since July. The defence attorney then applied for bail.
However Prosecutor Sherwin Mathews stated that “the police are not bandits” and they did not have to possess a firearm to arrest a person unless it was a dangerous situation. Mathews also stated that the police who had attempted to arrest Lawrence could have arrested him anywhere and they did not have to be accompanied by another police officer from a specific district to carry out the arrest.
The prosecutor further noted that the reason that Lawrence was only brought before the court now was because the police could not have located him since he was in hiding. Mathews subsequently objected to the bail application on the grounds that Lawrence may not return to court since he had given the police varying addresses.
Magistrate Robertson then ordered that Lawrence be remanded to prison and that he appear back in Court next Thursday.
