A High Court judge has sen­tenced two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als to more than two years in jail af­ter they were found guilty of traf­fick­ing mar­i­jua­na with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of BDS$744,600 (One Bar­ba­dos dol­lar=US$0.50 cents).

An­ton James and Kyrsten Trim were jailed by Jus­tice Ran­dall Wor­rell on Tues­day and their sen­tences of 1,182 and 1,002 days im­pris­on­ment is the re­main­der of a 12-year start­ing sen­tence im­posed for traf­fick­ing 193.65 kilo­grammes or 426.92 pounds of cannabis on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2021.

James and Trim were con­vict­ed, rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged on the of­fences of pos­ses­sion and im­por­ta­tion of the il­lic­it drug.

“This is a mat­ter that can on­ly be dealt with by way of a cus­to­di­al sen­tence. It is quite clear [giv­en] the ex­ces­sive amount of drug. I don’t think a start­ing point of 12 years is un­rea­son­able giv­en the quan­ti­ty,” Jus­tice Wor­rell added.

The court de­duct­ed three years from the 12-year start­ing sen­tence for mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors and an­oth­er three years for their guilty pleas, leav­ing them with six years.

The ac­cused men were al­so cred­it­ed with 828 days they had al­ready spent on re­mand at Dodds Prison and had an­oth­er 180 days de­duct­ed giv­en the two-year de­lay which it took for the mat­ter to be ad­ju­di­cat­ed.

Giv­en that James ad­mit­ted he was the mas­ter­mind of the en­ter­prise, he will spend the next 1 182 days in jail. Trim, mean­while, was giv­en a fur­ther de­duc­tion of 180 days from his 1 182 days as he is said to have played a more sub­or­di­nate role.

Both men were told to par­tic­i­pate in vo­ca­tion­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes avail­able at the prison.

Jus­tice Wor­rell said the court had looked at im­pos­ing fines on the To­bag­o­ni­ans but there was noth­ing to in­di­cate they could pay.

The court heard that of­fi­cers from the Drug Squad and the Coast Guard, act­ing on a tip-off, on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2021, en­coun­tered a ves­sel with reg­is­tra­tion num­ber TFT-208, bear­ing the name Swamp Dog. In the pres­ence of both men, the ves­sel was searched, and 10 poly­thene bags con­tain­ing the drugs were dis­cov­ered.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, CMC –