By Latrishka Thomas
A Jolly Harbour resident was fined $1,000 yesterday for making a false report to the police claiming that he was a crime victim.
On June 12, Sean Fevrier called the police and alleged that his MacBook and Samsung S21 had been stolen.
He told a constable that on the day prior, he went to Jolly Beach for a swim and left the items on a beach chair covered by a towel but returned to find them missing.
He was invited to the police station on several occasions to make a formal statement but never showed up.
The officer continued his investigation into the matter and, based on his findings, on July 25 he applied and obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s home.
He subsequently went to the man’s Jolly Harbour residence and handed him the warrant. During the search the laptop and cellular phone were found.
The electronic items were shown to the accused and he was cautioned and asked if those were the items he reported stolen, and he replied “officer, I run into some financial problem so I tried something”.
He was arrested and later charged.
The 44-year-old’s lawyer, Merisse McDougal, told the court that the man is a father of three who “wanted to help his daughter achieve her goal of being in the British army and wanted to assist her but didn’t have the means”.
She said he thought that reporting the laptop stolen might help him get a loan from Courts.
The defendant, who works as a resort butler, then said to the court, “if I could have, I would change it and take everything back”.
Fevrier then apologised to the investigating officer and to the court.
McDougal begged the court to impose a small fine noting the man’s financial situation.
Magistrate Conliffe Clarke reminded the man that the officer wasn’t the only one inconvenienced since he had to disturb a magistrate to get a warrant and ask other officers to accompany him to execute it.
The magistrate therefore fined him $1,000, much more than the defendant had hoped for.