Sascha Wil­son

A Long­denville man who claimed he was wear­ing an army uni­form as his Car­ni­val cos­tume was yes­ter­day jailed for 15 months.

Bharat Lutch­man, 42, a labour­er, said he bought the items for $400 from a re­tired army of­fi­cer last year.

He plead­ed guilty to wear­ing the cam­ou­flage cloth­ing when he ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Wendy Dougdeen-Bal­ly in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates Court.

He was ar­rest­ed around 4.40 pm on Sun­day, at To­ba­go Road, En­ter­prise af­ter the po­lice saw him wear­ing the cloth­ing.

Lutch­man told the of­fi­cer he was “a sol­dier rank 2.” When asked about the uni­form, he said, “Of­fi­cer, I buy the uni­form for $400 last year be­fore Christ­mas.”

The cloth­ing—a green den­im army jack­et and trousers, a T&T reg­i­ment sol­dier ti­tle, a pair of de­fence force head­quar­ters shoul­der flash­es, a green army lan­yard, a pair of army cor­po­ral chevrons, a 21st-an­niver­sary army badge, a coup army rib­bon and a long ser­vice rib­bon, were shown to the mag­is­trate.

Un­der the De­fence Act, the max­i­mum penal­ty for the of­fence is $100,000 fine and 18 months in prison. Ask­ing for le­nien­cy, at­tor­ney Shi­va Boodoo said Lutch­man was sor­ry.

He said Lutch­man pur­chased the items of a re­tired reg­i­ment of­fi­cer last year and was un­aware that wear­ing the items was against the law.

Boodoo said his client was ine­bri­at­ed and had put on the cloth­ing as a Car­ni­val cos­tume. Lutch­man ad­mit­ted to hav­ing 13 pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions for var­i­ous of­fences and had been jailed nine times.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Bis­nath said Lutch­man’s claim that he bought the items from a re­tired sol­dier is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. (SW)