An Agricola youth, Esan Gibson, 18, will be spending the next three years in jail after admitting to harbouring fugitive Melvor Jeffrey, who had escaped custody while being held under guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan handed down the sentence to Gibson, a welder, after he pleaded guilty yesterday, while she remanded two young women who were also charged alongside him with the crime.
Gibson, Carlotta Geer, 24, and Shyon Freeman, 17, all of Agricola, were read a charge which stated that between July 19 and July 23, at Lot 80 Brutus Street, Agricola, East Bank Demerara, they together knowingly lodged or harboured Jeffrey, who was wanted in connection with a crime.
Geer and Freeman pleaded not guilty.
According to Police Prosecutor Arvin Moore, on July 11, Jeffrey was engaged in a shootout with the police at Agricola, where he was wounded before being arrested with a shotgun and eight cartridges.
Moore said Jeffrey was subsequently taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was admitted as a patient under police guard. On July 19, he added, Jeffrey escaped. However, the police, acting on information, later found him on July 23 at the Lot 80 Brutus Street, Agricola house, where he was found in a barrel.
The prosecutor further told the court that at the house, Gibson admitted to police that he knew that Jeffrey was wanted. He was reported to have told them that he saw Jeffrey in the village’s backdam and he assisted him by taking him to the house.
Gibson, asked if he had anything to say to the court before being sentenced, said he did not. The Chief Magistrate then sentenced him to three years and also fined him $80,000 for the crime.
Meanwhile, Moore objected to bail for Geer and Freeman.
Geer’s attorney made an application for bail, while noting that the she was a mother of three and had been cooperating with the police.
Nonetheless, both females were denied bail and remanded to prison.
Before setting August 9 as the date for their next hearing, Chief Magistrate McLennan lectured them and Gibson on the seriousness of harbouring a fugitive.
