Andre Alston Spooner claimed he did not know what to say in his defence to a loitering charge.
But when he did start to speak, he claimed his hand mistakenly brushed a woman’s door but he was not trying to break into her house. His words, however, did not save him from a six-month jail term yesterday.
Spooner, a 37-year-old landscaper who has no fixed place of abode, had pleaded guilty in the District “A” Magistrates’ Court to loitering on the premises of Aishan Kirk Patrick on February 15, and there being cause to suspect he was about to commit an offence of burglary.
He has four previous convictions – two for burglary and one each for assault and possession of cannabis.
“I don’t know what to say myself,” Spooner began his defence.
“I wouldn’t say I went to break in. I was holding over and my hand touch the door and she hear the noise and mussee feel I trying to break in,” he said, as he added he did not want to return to prison.
As he pointed to Spooner’s last nine-month prison sentence for burglary, Magistrate Douglas Frederick said the man, who was gainfully employed at the time of the offence, had been “going good”.
But Magistrate Frederick told him he had “[thrown] away the whole pail of milk” with his actions.
The magistrate then sentenced him to six months in prison.
Prosecutor Sergeant Theodore McClean said the complainant’s property is landscaped by a company and she was at home. After hearing a noise outside, she looked to see two men, one of whom was Spooner, working on her property.
Around 11:30 a.m., she heard a noise at her front door. That noise sounded as if someone was trying to open the door. She peeped outside and saw Spooner kneeling down fidgeting with the door.
She kept him under surveillance and then shouted at him. He ran through the gate and sat on the sidewalk.
Police were summoned and they arrested Spooner. (HLE)