Elderly tourist in court after bullet found in bag at airport

A 79-year-old American visitor who admitted accidentally bringing a bullet into the islands escaped a criminal conviction on Monday, after a magistrate delivered a no-conviction-recorded verdict.

The tourist, whom the Compass is not naming because no conviction was recorded, was preparing to board a return flight to the US when the bullet was found in his carry-on bag as he went through security at the Owen Roberts International Airport on Thursday, 5 June.

The man pleaded guilty in Summary Court on Monday to one count of possession of a firearm (ammunition).

The court heard that he had been on holiday in Cayman, which he had visited many times, with several members of his family.

Defence lawyer Lene Doherty explained to the court that the defendant had last used the bag when he had been at rifle practice at a shooting range with his grandchildren three years ago.

Customs and Border Control officers found the single .22mm bullet in the bottom of the man’s bag, after it showed up in an X-ray.

Doherty told the magistrate the bullet was “not in plain view” inside the bag, and that the officers had had to rummage through it to find the ammunition after seeing it on the X-ray.

“The only explanation he can give for loose ammunition being found in the very bottom of the bag is that it fell out of the holder in which the ammunition was contained. He said he always kept it in a box,” Doherty told Magistrate Kirsty-Ann Gunn.

She said the experience had been “traumatising” for the man, whom she said had been coming to Cayman with his family for at least 25 years.

She told Gunn that the defendant had no criminal record and “has never so much as had a speeding ticket in his life”.

Doherty urged the magistrate not to record a conviction, as it would be humiliating for the defendant, be damaging to his unblemished reputation, and would also prevent him from returning to Cayman as a visitor in future.

Gunn, in delivering her judgment, outlined the seriousness with which authorities in Cayman take the illegal possession of firearms.

“In the Cayman Islands, compared to the United States where firearms and ammunition are quite normal items to carry around, we have very strict laws governing and controlling the possession and use of firearms, and, so, [possession of] even one round of ammunition can end up with conviction and a stringent penalty,” she said.

The magistrate accepted that the defendant was “inadvertently in possession” of the bullet and had brought it with him by accident.

She said this was a very different state of affairs than when local residents in Cayman are found with ammunition, “because that is less likely to be inadvertent” as it is illegal to possess any firearm or ammunition in Cayman without a licence.

Acknowledging the impact a conviction would have on the man’s reputation, and his life-long clean record, she said she would not be recording a conviction. Instead, she conditionally discharged him for 18 months, and warned that if he committed any further offences in the Cayman Islands within that period, he would need to return to court and be convicted and sentenced.

She ordered that he pay court costs of $700.

She told the defendant that she hoped he would return to the Cayman Islands, and advised him that if he does, to “double check, triple check and quadruple check [his bag], because this special disposal will only happen once”.