Teen gets 16 years for robbery, shooting

Elmer Walter Wright, 18, was
sentenced on Friday to 16 years imprisonment for the robbery of Mostyn’s Service
Station in Bodden Town on 10 June, 2010 and discharging a firearm in the
direction of police officers later that night. 

After court adjourned,
Defence Attorney Ben Tonner said he would be filing an appeal.
 

Speaking in mitigation after
Justice Algernon Smith delivered his verdicts on Thursday, Mr. Tonner had
emphasised Wright’s unstable childhood and the failure of state institutions
that could have helped him. Wright was 16 years eight months old when the
robbery occurred, the attorney pointed out. He asked the judge to consider that
Wright’s age and upbringing together formed an exceptional circumstance that
could affect sentencing. 

In his sentencing remarks on
Friday, Justice Smith said he was of the view that there were no exceptional
circumstances. 

He also made it clear that he
was imposing a 12-year sentence for the robbery and a consecutive four-year
sentence for the unlawful discharging of a Remington 12-gauge shotgun.
 

The maximum sentence for
robbery is life imprisonment; a first offence involving the use of a firearm
could attract the tariff of 14 years. The maximum sentence for unlawful use of a
firearm is five years. 

Justice Smith found that
Wright was one of three armed and masked individuals who entered the service
station and stole about $1,000 through use of force or threat of force against
the clerk and customers. More than one offender indicated gang activity, the
judge said, while disguises indicated the degree of pre-planning. Other
aggravating features included the fact that the robbery was committed at night,
the business was small and vulnerable, one of the customers had been gun-butted.
 

The judge found that after
Wright and his companions fled from the robbery scene in a white car, police
officers pursued them and ended up in an area of Northward Road. There, the
judge said, Wright pointed a shotgun in the direction of the police vehicle and
fired. He was charged with the attempted murder of the officers. 
 

The evidence was that the
shooter did not hold the shotgun to his shoulder or to his hip — stances that
would ensure accuracy. Further, he was 35 to 40 feet away, but no bullet hit the
police vehicle although it was not moving. Justice Smith said there was
reasonable doubt as to the accused’s intent and found him not guilty of
attempted murder but guilty of unlawful use of a firearm.  

Wright was captured in the
Beach Bay Road area a short time after the Northward incident. He had gunshot
residue on the palm of his right hand and DNA consistent with his was found on
the trigger guard of the shotgun. Shotgun cartridges were also recovered from
the area after Wright was seen throwing something away. 

Sentences for possession of
the ammunition and the shotgun without a licence were made to run concurrent
with the 12 years for robbery. 

But the discharge of the
shotgun, combined with an effort to escape, was not part of the robbery, Justice
Smith said. He referred to comments by Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryll
Richards. She had advised the court that there were no local precedents and the
community would say it was an unusual offence. Police officers on routine patrol
are not normally armed, she explained, and when an incident like this occurred
they would have to call a special unit. 

Justice Smith said police
officers were entitled to the protection of the court. He said the court had to
send a clear message to would-be offenders that this offence would not be
tolerated. 

The welfare of a young
offender is never the only consideration, the judge pointed out. When a young
offender commits a serious offence, there is legitimate public expectation that
the offender will be severely punished, to bring home to him the gravity of the
offence and to warn others of the consequence of behaving in a similar
way. 

If appropriate punishment did
not follow, public confidence in the administration of justice would be weakened
and the temptation would arise to give punishment extra-judicially, Justice
Smith indicated. Finally, if punishment did little to heal a victim’s wounds,
there can be little doubt that insult would be added to injury. Considering all
those factors, he concluded the serious nature of Wright’s offending demanded
appropriately serious punishment.