The man who drove the getaway vehicle on November 21, 2008, after three men robbed the Transport Board’s Mangrove Bus Depot at gunpoint, has been sentenced to ten years in prison.
Shurland Andre Mascoll, of St Patrick’s, Christ Church and formerly of Storey Gap, Codrington Hill, St Michael, had previously pleaded guilty to the charge of entering the depot and stealing $1,013 belonging to the Government and a cellular phone belonging to Richard Robinson.
The aggravated burglary occurred just after 10 p.m. while four persons - two cashiers, a supervisor and a guard - were at work. According to the facts which were outlined by Senior Crown Counsel Krystal Delaney, a man brandishing a gun banged on the building’s window demanding entry. Three men then entered the depot, one took the money while another detained the supervisor and the guard and the third was the lookout. As they made their way out the culprit who took the money also stole the guard’s cellular phone.
In handing down the sentence in the No 5 Supreme Court today, Madam Justice Jacqueline Cornelius said that Mascoll, who turns 38 in October, had 19 previous convictions, most of them for burglary.
He is also currently serving a seven-year sentence for a similar offence which he will complete on November 28, 2021. Mascoll also has outstanding matters across both the magistrate and supreme court jurisdictions.
“You have a consistent . . . . criminal history,” Justice Cornelius said, as she also explained that the Probation Department had assessed Mascoll’s risk of reoffending as “high with far-reaching implications.”
The judge explained that the aggravating features of the crime were that the robbery involved a Government agency, and was not spontaneous but had a degree of planning and the coordination of assigned roles.
“And although you were not on the scene at the depot you were a significant part of the planning and success of the burglary,” the judge added, even as she pointed out that the use of a firearm had put employees at risk of serious injury or death.
She said the mitigating factors were that there was no physical injury, Mascoll had pleaded guilty to the crime at the earliest opportunity and had cooperated with police. She said he had also expressed remorse and had further asked the court to take two other burglaries into account thereby saving judicial time.
The judge also handed him a ten-year sentence for the March 31, 2012 robbery of a number of persons outside a St Michael bar.
The complainants were robbed at gunpoint after a man approached them and said: “This is a stick-up, I ain’t mekking no sport.” One complainant was hit in the head before the culprits fired two shots as they left the scene.
“The court finds your behaviour in the commission of this offence to be reprehensible and particular terrorising for those present at the bar,” the judge stated.
Justice Cornelius then took into consideration the amount of time that Mascoll had already spent on remand and other factors in imposing the two ten-year sentences which will run concurrently with the seven-year sentence that he is currently serving.
This means that when Mascoll completes his sentence on November 28, 2021 he will have a little over a year and eleven months remaining to serve for his crimes.
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