Three gun-toting robbers jailed

Two men jointly convicted of armed robbery have been sentenced to 18 years in jail, while their accomplice, a third man, was sentenced to a little more than half that time after he turned witness against one of the others.
The convicts are Deandre Henry and Katamwa Bright who each got 18 years and Julian King who is to serve nine and a half years in jail for the armed robbery.
The evidence put to Justice Iain Morley in the case prosecuted by Crown Counsel Adlai Smith, was that on July 25, 2014, Henry, 25, Bright, 23, and King 27, robbed Sherry Carter of a briefcase and $1,500 in Woods Mall.
She worked for Benito construction and had collected cheques and cash as payroll for the workers.
The trio had hired a Toyota Vista car and changed its number plates. King used his own Toyota Corolla from which he kept look out for Carter at the scene.
Henry, who was with Bright, put on overalls and a mask and was armed with a gun. Then, Bright drove the Vista to Woods Mall and intercepted Carter to get the money. Henry hopped out, fired off a round, Bright then sped off and the three met up at Burma Quarry to distribute the money.
“This was a professional planned armed robbery,” the judge noted.
Last year February, Henry and King pleaded guilty on the second day of trial for robbing Carter, after hearing evidence from another friend and accomplice. The jury was discharged against Bright, who faced re-trial and whose case caused the delay of the sentencing of the other two men for over a year. In the meantime, in March this year, King gave a statement to the prosecution implicating co-accused Bright, forcing him to plead guilty in the end, in April.
The judge examined each man’s past before sentencing. Concerning Henry, now 29, he has no related convictions, except that when he, King and Bright robbed Carter in July 2014, he (Henry) was on bail for another robbery committed in January 2014. In that other offence, Henry, along with three others, robbed businessman Midhat Lwiseh and his staff of $26,200 in cash, a small empty safe valued at $500 and a phone valued at $2,000.
During the attack at Fades building on Old Parham Road, Lwiseh was beaten on the head with a gun and the judge noted that a shot was also fired.
The judge, who also sentenced Henry for this offence yesterday, recalled, “[Lwiseh] was twice struck on the head with the butt of a gun, causing a 2x3cm jagged laceration, while a round was also discharged into the ceiling, making him think he had been shot.”
Henry subsequently pleaded guilty to that offence and for that, Justice Morley ordered him jailed for 15 years but the time will run concurrently with the 18 years for the attack on Carter.
In a pre-sentence report from the probation department, the convict was described as one of 16 siblings, with no relationship with his father, as they have only spoken once for his birthday. The court was told he is hypertensive and left school without any qualifications and has been a good worker in construction. In that same report, it was noted that Henry apologised to his mother for his behaviour and he expressed “sincere regret” to her.
Bright, now 27, has three young children, aged three, four and seven; is a fisherman by trade and he has two firearm related convictions. In 2009, he was placed on probation for a year for one of the two convictions.
Meanwhile, King, now 31, has a seven-year-old daughter by a stable relationship of 12 years. He has one relevant previous conviction for robbery in 2011 for which he received 21 months in prison. A pre-sentencing report indicated that he was disrespectful in prison but the court did not give that much weight to that given the time that had passed.