(CNS): A local man who reported his car stolen which was used in a robbery was given an eight month jail term recently. But despite his long rap sheet with multiple dishonesty offences the judge opted to suspend the sentence because it took almost three years to get the case to court. The defendant, Richard Lee Hydes (45) spent two months in custody and an extensive period on curfew on an electronic tag since he was arrested.
Lee was charged with Doing an Act in Order to Obstruct, Prevent, Pervert or Defeat the Course of 30 Justice after he had reported that his Volvo S40 had been stolen in March 2022.
Following a trial which was held in March this year he was convicted as charged but then jumped bail before his sentencing the second time he had done so in connection with the case. He was eventually tracked down and arrested and appeared in court on 16 September where he was given the suspended sentence and despite the issues and his criminal history he was given another chance when the judge took into consideration the time it took to get to trial, his time in jail and the fact that he was also shot and injured while awaiting trial on bail.
The robbery in which his car was used was committed by other individuals on the evening of 29 March 2022 at the Esso gas station on Dorcy Drive in George Town. Although the suspected robbers fled in the first instance on a motor bike police believed they were subsequently picked up in another vehicle which officers eventually stopped and pulled over. It was then that they discovered it belonged to Lee.
He in the meantime reported the car stolen the next morning claiming he had left it with a mechanic for work to be done and it had been taken from there. But according to the mechanic this was not true. The car was not left with him but instead Hydes had come to his place of work and asked him to provide a cover story that the car had been left at his premises and had been stolen.
Hydes was also given away by the electronic monitoring he was wearing at the time showed he reported the car stolen at 7:06am on March 30 well before the device data showed him visiting the mechanic’s address. The tag record also indicated Hydes was never in the vicinity of the mechanic’s home at the time he claimed to have dropped off the vehicle.
On the evidence at trial Hydes began his deceptive conduct hours after the police had intercepted his vehicle following the report of the Robbery. The defendant first went to the mechanics home and then his workplace to seek his assistance to lie to the police and he continued with the deception,, the crown argued, when he gave a recorded statement to the police, in interview and maintained that the car was stolen up to his trial earlier this year.
Two men who were charged with the original robbery were acquitted after trial in September 2023.
