Derek Achong

A 29-year-old Guyanese na­tion­al has been giv­en a sus­pend­ed sen­tence af­ter ad­mit­ting to shoplift­ing from the Ch­agua­nas branch of Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics Lim­it­ed.

Se­le­na John, a moth­er of two from Long­denville, was placed on a $5,000 bond to keep the peace for three years af­ter plead­ing guilty to lar­ce­ny be­fore Mag­is­trate Niko­las Ali on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the sum­ma­ry of ev­i­dence in the case, which was pre­sent­ed by po­lice pros­e­cu­tors af­ter John’s guilty plea, the in­ci­dent took place around 2.30 pm on Mon­day at the com­pa­ny’s branch lo­cat­ed along the Ch­agua­nas Main Road.

John was at­tempt­ing to ex­it the store when an elec­tron­ic scan­ner went off and alert­ed the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer on du­ty.

With the as­sis­tance of a fe­male em­ploy­ee, the se­cu­ri­ty guard searched John’s bag and found a WAHL trim­mer, an LED cur­ing lamp, a stick of de­odor­ant, a tube of chil­dren’s tooth­paste and a bot­tle of chil­dren’s sham­poo. The stolen items had a to­tal val­ue of $460.75.

Pre­sent­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea on John’s be­half, her lawyer Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh said that his client, who had a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore the in­ci­dent, was re­morse­ful for her ac­tions and chose to plead guilty dur­ing her first court ap­pear­ance.

Ma­hara­jh said that John has a pend­ing res­i­den­cy ap­pli­ca­tion and can­not work as she does not have a work per­mit. He claimed that the stolen items were for her hus­band and her chil­dren, ages two and four.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, po­lice pros­e­cu­tors said that the of­fence was too preva­lent.

“We at the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion have been see­ing quite a num­ber of re­ports, es­pe­cial­ly em­a­nat­ing from the Pen­ny­wise store,” the pros­e­cu­tor said.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence, Mag­is­trate Ali con­sid­ered her ear­ly guilty plea and the fact that John can­not work legal­ly to pay a fine.

Ali ex­plained that un­der the terms of the bond if John is ar­rest­ed and charged with an­oth­er crim­i­nal of­fence in the next three years she would have to be brought back be­fore him to be sen­tenced for the shoplift­ing.

He said that if she is not charged dur­ing the pe­ri­od her crim­i­nal record would be cleared.

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