BARBARA GAYLE, Star Writer

A self-proclaimed telephone technician found himself before the Savanna-la-Mar Resident Magistrate's Court, Westmoreland, recently for fleecing several persons of money and their cellular phones on the pretext that he could repair them.

Rohan Wilson, 33, charged with four counts of larceny by trick, pleaded guilty. He told the court that within days of receiving the complainants' phones and money, he was held up and robbed by gunmen. He said that incident occurred at the gas station close to the Negril Police Station and he made a report there.

But when Resident Magistrate Sheron Barnes instructed the police to find the station diary with the report, Wilson quickly changed his story and said the gunmen stabbed him and he was hospitalised. He said the police came to see him at the hospital but he could not recall the name or the face of the police officer. Wilson said when he was robbed, his knapsack with the money, phones and parts were taken.

However, one of the complainants, Gary Rhoden, said he went to seek out the accused at his home, only to be told that he had moved out with his belongings as well as a few items from the shopkeeper at the front of the premises. Checks were also made with Digicel, for whom Wilson had said he was a phone technician, but they denied knowing him.

Police alerted

He was held in early July after one of the complainants saw him in Savanna-la-Mar and alerted the police. Wilson told RM Barnes that his parents and brother had died within the last five years and that he was extremely stressed. He said he would work and pay back the money.

Wilson was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years on each charge, with supervision from the probation office for the purpose of counselling.