A Grand Court judge has sentenced a man to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, for falsely claiming his car, which was used in a robbery, had been stolen.
Police had chased down and stopped a grey Volvo after it was used in a robbery of an Esso gas station on Dorcy Drive, George Town, on 29 March 2022.
The following morning, Richard Lee Hydes, 45, the owner of the car, called police to report that it had been stolen from the mechanic’s shop where he had earlier left it to be repaired.
Hydes had been charged with committing an act to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat the course of justice, after making a false report to the police. He was found guilty after trial on 12 March this year.
Justice Cheryll Richards, who delivered her sentencing judgment on 16 Sept., which was published publicly on 31 Oct., noted that there had been considerable delays in the case. During the intervening three years, Hydes had been shot, the court heard.
Hydes first appeared before the Summary Court in September 2022 after being arrested and charged the day before. He pleaded not guilty.
Some of the delays in the case occurred because the mechanic, who was the main witness, was unwell and needed treatment overseas, and because Hydes, who had earlier been released on bail, failed to show up for hearings and a warrant for his arrest had been issued.
He appeared in court for his 16 Sept. sentencing from custody, after being remanded.
Richards noted that the mechanic, in his testimony, had told the court that the car had never been left at his premises and that Hydes had come to his workplace and asked him to provide a cover story and say the car had been stolen.
The judge said Hydes had multiple previous convictions for dishonesty, including burglary, attempted burglary and common assault in 2022, for which he was still on bail at the time he was arrested in this case.
Using a starting point of one year, Richards took into account the aggravating factors that Hydes had committed the offence while on bail, his previous convictions for dishonesty, and the fact that he involved another person, the mechanic, in his conduct, and she increased the sentence to 18 months.
She also took a number of mitigating factors into account, including that Hydes had been shot and injured while awaiting trial, his age, and the fact that he has four grandchildren. This reduced his sentence by four months to 14 months.
She also took the delays in the case under consideration, and further reduced the sentence by six months to one of eight months’ imprisonment, which she suspended for two years, noting that Hydes had spent 62 days in custody in the run-up to the sentencing.
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