Updated | Owner of missing firearms still not charged
Published:Thursday | July 28, 2022 | 12:06 AMBryan Miller/ - Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Senior police personnel in Hanover are seemingly in the dark on reasons for the delay in laying charges against the owner of two firearms that went missing last year from a villa on the property of the Tryall Club Hotel.
Reports are that a shotgun and a handgun went missing from a hotel in Sandy Bay, Hanover, and the caretaker of that villa, a taxi operator at the property, Balfour Hutchinson, had since been arrested and charged for the missing firearms.
The Gleaner was told that the villa owner, who is a licensed firearm holder, left the property for an unstated amount of time. He left the firearms in the villa, and as he usually does, left Hutchinson with the keys and in charge.
On his return, however, both firearms were said to be missing and the Hanover police were called in to investigate.
Hutchinson was questioned and charged for larceny of firearm and criminal negligence. The matter is now before the Hanover Parish Court.
Hutchinson first faced the Hanover Parish Court on May 30, and was offered bail in the sum of $300,000 with one to three sureties, ordered to surrender his travel documents, and report to the Sandy Bay police once weekly on Mondays. He was again in court on June 21 and July 26, and on both occasions the court was told that the report from the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) was not yet in. At the last court sitting, the matter was put off until September 20.
Detective inspector in charge of crime in Hanover, Carl Brown, told The Gleaner in June that documentation about the matter was before the police legal department, and charges would have been laid against the firearm holder before Hutchinson's case was called up in July.
But with no action taken, and following the call-up of the case on July 26, superintendent of police in charge of Hanover, Sharon Beeput, has promised closer vigilance on the matter.
“As far as I am concerned he (the firearm owner) should be charged, and I have done all the necessary paperwork for that to happen and it should happen soon,” she stated.
One senior police also expressed surprise that the matter was allowed to linger with the owner of the firearm not yet charged more than six months after the weapons went missing.
“In my 20 years in the service I have never seen anything like this,” he told The Gleaner.
Note: In a previous version of this story, we incorrectly made reference to a property. We regret the error.