Sascha Wil­son

Two teenage rev­ellers yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted to be­ing armed with cut­lass­es in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents dur­ing Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do.The school­boys, aged 17 and 16, from La Ro­maine, ap­peared be­fore Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court and each plead­ed guilty to hav­ing the weapons with­out rea­son­able ex­cuse.

The old­er teen was ar­rest­ed around 3.45 am on Car­ni­val Mon­day by PC Christo­pher Gar­raway, who was on du­ty at Cipero Street.Po­lice searched a knap­sack which was strapped to the teenag­er's back and found an 18-inch blade. He told them he had it for pro­tec­tion.Ob­serv­ing that the stain­less steel blade was fair­ly new and sharp, the mag­is­trate com­ment­ed: "One blow and this will take off a man's hand, and this is what he is walk­ing around with at 17 years old. He would have used it if he had to. He would have chris­tened it."

How­ev­er, the teenag­er's at­tor­ney Michelle Ram­paul said he was not a trou­ble­mak­er and was a mem­ber of a J'Ou­vert band. Say­ing the teenag­er used poor judge­ment, she said he took the cut­lass from a friend.The teenag­er is due to write a plumb­ing ex­am­i­na­tion on Mon­day, Ram­paul said, as she asked the mag­is­trate not to re­voke his bail.

He had been grant­ed $15,000 bail at the po­lice sta­tion. The mag­is­trate or­dered a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port and ad­journed the mat­ter to March 6.The oth­er teenag­er was ar­rest­ed around 8 pm on Car­ni­val Tues­day when PC Gar­raway saw him with a 15-inch cut­lass held up­raised dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with oth­er peo­ple on Cipero Street, po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan said.

The teenag­er's at­tor­ney, Ram­paul, said he was a Form 4 stu­dent and a first of­fend­er.Welling­ton said: "He is a vagabond. He should not be in school. He was seen with it up­raised. He could have chopped or killed some­body."He de­nied the boy bail pend­ing a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port. Ram­paul com­plained that there was a chick­en pox out­break at the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC), but the mag­is­trate still re­mand­ed him to YTC and ad­journed the mat­ter to Feb­ru­ary 27.