Court quashes woman's ganja-related sentence
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
AN ALL-Jamaica Air Services Ltd (AJAS) employee who labelled two suitcases with ganja in the name of a passenger and smuggled them on to a flight in July 2007 has been successful in having her compulsory prison sentence of two and a half years set aside.
The Court of Appeal ruled that Patricia Henry, 32, who was at the time of the offence a customer services coordinator with AJAS, should pay fines as the compulsory prison sentence was manifestly excessive.
Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry had convicted Henry last year of charges of possession of ganja, dealing in ganja and attempting to export ganja.She was fined $15,000 or six months' imprisonment for possession of ganja, and in addition ordered to serve two and a half years' imprisonment. She was also sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment for dealing in ganja and a fine of $500,000 or six months in prison, in addition to being sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment for attempting to export ganja.
The court quashed the conviction for dealing in ganja, as it ruled that was an alternative count to attempting to export ganja.The evidence given at the trial was that on July 12, 2007, the police were on duty at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay when they observed two men and a woman named Clare Bell each carrying a suitcase to the check-in counter.
The police searched their suitcases and nothing illegal was found. After the passengers left the check-in counter, the police received information and went on-board the aircraft where they saw Bell, who confirmed that she had checked in only one bag.
Bell was shown three suitcases with her name on them, and she said only one belonged to her. She pointed to her suitcase and used a key to open the padlock. The suitcase contained only female clothing and personal items. The police opened the other two suitcases and ganja was found.
cautioned
Henry was questioned by the police and said she wanted to tell them everything. She was cautioned and gave a statement in which she said that a porter named Vince had approached her and said that a passenger who had missed her flight the week before wanted to get on the flight to England.
She said the suitcases had the name Clare Bell on them and she generated electronic tags and placed them on those two bags. "I know what I did was wrong because I was aware that contraband was in the bag." She said the porter told her that one of the bags had 'a little something in it'.
In allowing the appeal against sentence, the court said it agreed with attorney-at-law Oswest Senior Smith that the custodial sentences were manifestly excessive. The court said it was not clear from the record why the RM did not request a social enquiry report for sentencing.