A 30-year-old man was sen­tenced to 36 months of hard labour last Tues­day for rob­bing a man of his cell phone and cash ear­li­er this month.

Niron Burke, of Pa­trong Av­enue, Va­len­cia, was giv­en the sen­tence at the San­gre Grande Mag­is­trate’s Court where he plead­ed guilty to a rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion charge stem­ming from an in­ci­dent that oc­curred on June 8.

Burke was ar­rest­ed and lat­er charged on June 19 by PC Bap­tiste of the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, at 8 pm on June 8, a man was walk­ing along Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent, Va­len­cia, when he was ap­proached by a sus­pect who was armed with a firearm.

De­tec­tives were told that the armed man pro­ceed­ed to rob the vic­tim of his Ouku­tel C21 Pro cell­phone val­ued at $2,000 and $200 be­fore es­cap­ing by run­ning off in a west­er­ly di­rec­tion in­to a near­by bushy area.

On June 19, a team of po­lice of­fi­cers were con­duct­ing an op­er­a­tion when they spot­ted the sus­pect and ar­rest­ed him.

Fol­low­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the ex­e­cu­tion of a search war­rant at the sus­pect’s home, he was charged with the of­fence af­ter con­fess­ing to the crime.