(Barbados Today) – All a well known burglar wanted to do when he escaped police custody was to “safeguard” his home and property, have a drink and spend some time with his girlfriend before he “go up”.
Don Ricardo Sealy, of Graigg Road, St Lawrence, Christ Church who was arrested in connection with a burglary, told Justice Christopher Birch that he knew he had done “foolishness” when he committed the offence without the use of force on August 13, 2019.
After the 44-year-old pleaded guilty in Supreme Court No. 5A today, Crown Counsel Rudolph Burnett outlined what occurred before Sealy fled from the Oistins Police Station.
The prosecutor disclosed that officers were on duty along Paradise Village, Christ Church when they saw Sealy who was wanted in connection with a break in at a residence at Graeme Hall Park, Christ Church. On seeing the police he fled, climbed over a fence with razor wire cutting himself before he was apprehended.
As lawmen were getting ready to escort him from their vehicle around 12:50 a.m., after returning from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he was treated, he suddenly pulled away and ran through the front gate of the Oistins Police Station, turned west towards Oistins Post Office, across Oistins Main Road before being caught in Scarborough.
“This was bare foolishness,” he was recorded by police saying, after refusing to give a statement. “I tell myself that my house open and that I wanted to go home and safeguard my property.”
Today he stuck to that explanation but gave Justice Birch a detailed account and how he arrived in the dock today. He revealed that he was released from prison in 2018 after spending seven and a half years behind bars. But Sealy who has 27 convictions – including three for possession cocaine, three for theft, one for criminal damage and 17 for burglary – said life on the outside was difficult.
“I got trades and skills you know but nobody not hiring me. And it is not because of my criminal record . . . but it was just how everybody was saying that they can’t take on nobody because right now there ain’t no money to pay. . . . I tried 18 different churches and everybody was telling me the same thing, ‘things rough’.”
He said he got a job selling coconuts and ackees but he was not able to save. He then got involved with a girl but the two “fall out” and he started drinking and smoking marijuana. “I say the only way to control my drinking habit is for me to smoke a little spliff.”
Sealy said his life spiraled from there. “I refuse to seek help and it tell myself that I can maintain myself that I can control myself. Having a fun life is what cause my downfall.” In an over 20-minute long addressed he disclosed that he was heading home from the beach with his when he was apprehended.
“I panicked and I say ‘Lord what I gone do hey’. The dog even run and went long he business. I ask [the police] to carry me home and get a shirt and I would tell the girl boom, boom, boom, lock up the place. I have personal items in there.
“I know I gone and do foolishness and stuff . . . but in the heat of the moment, I was scared. It wasn’t even an act of courage, it was like a frightened act and I just pull it, and I just do so and ran off and two officers running behind me all the time and I cah get nowhere because I handcuff you know. . . I still running boss, I still trying I say ‘God help muh, I don’t want the house stay open’ … and I say ‘Lord look I gine stop’. I was tired, I was sleepy . . . I was real hungry and all that . . . and fag out. I hand myself over,” Sealy told the High Court to the amusement of those present.
The convict who is currently serving a 42-month sentence then “begged” the court for mercy.
“The truth is I have spoken from my heart. I am not coming here with no excuses, there ain’t no excuse for ignorance and I am not the perfect human being. I is a sinner. I would like to be a good person, I asking this court to help . . .” he said stating that there was “a lot of work” to be done in society.
“The children out there need to be taught the truth. I can understand why this lot of foolishness going on in Barbados and I looking at it. Everyday I talking to the fellas around me in prison and I encourage them to serve God, I encourage them to turn their life around. I don’t sit down in prison and them fella promoting no folly. God put me here for a reason . . . I say I can be the light in the midst of the darkness because there is a lot of darkness in prison.
Sealy who returns before the High Court on April 27 for sentencing added: “I want to do something for my country. I begging for a little mercy . . .and not to condemn me for the person that is was.”