By Shakisa Harvey
Cindy Robertson, a young woman who claimed she bought an unlicensed gun with six live rounds to protect herself while working in the interior, was yesterday jailed for two years.
Robertson was also fined $50, 000 after deciding to maintain her guilty plea, although told of the penalty it would carry by city magistrate Fabayo Azore.
The court heard from Prosecutor Bharat Mangru that around 10:30pm on June 30, Robertson was travelling in a car, PJJ 8620, in Albouystown, along with three others when a search by police revealed the 1.32 revolver and 6 live rounds of .32 ammunition in her handbag. The respective charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition were laid on her after she admitted the items were hers.
Attorney Glenn Hanoman, who was present at the hearing and concerned that the young woman may be taking the blame for someone else, made an amicus curiae appearance on her behalf, in the interest of preventing “such a travesty of injustice.”
Robertson, however, insisted she was guilty and indicated that she did not wish to waste the court’s time, even after the lawyer notified her of all the options legally available to her.
A stoic Robertson, who said she had been employed as a chef in the interior, confessed to Hanoman that she bought the gun at Aranka Backdam to fend off a miner who had become infatuated with her to the extent that it posed as a threat to her life. The lawyer said the man tried to rape Robertson, who, as a result, found it fit to arm herself with a weapon.
“It was a duress of circumstances,” Hanoman explained, “she got it to flee from this man, as a young person on their own in the wilderness.”
In these circumstances, Hanoman pleaded with the court to consider “the vulnerable situation Robertson found herself in” as constituting special reasons for the offence, if the law would so allow.
In a further plea for leniency, the attorney informed the court that “she said that even if she pleads not guilty, there is nobody to post bail for her because she has no support group. She was left on her own at age fifteen.”
Wrapping up his application, Hanoman inquired if the court may exercise its discretion in not only imposing the minimum penalty of two years, but to have the sentences run concurrently and also order probation in consideration of Robertson’s troubled past.
The magistrate said she listened to the facts, Hanoman’s appeals as well as the fact that she is a young first time offender and currently unemployed, but she was forced to take into account the fact that the young woman had a firearm, which is a dangerous weapon and, in the circumstances, the court cannot treat that lightly.
“There are other avenues available to someone in your situation and arming yourself with a gun to resolve domestic violence is not one of them. You could have sought the assistance of social services,” the magistrate told Robertson.
Robertson afterwards sat in the courtroom crying in dismay when the magistrate announced that she was sentenced to two years imprisonment on each of the charges, together with the $50,000 fine. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Robertson later thanked Hanoman as she was being taken out of the courtroom.
