A 50-year-old farmer from Diego Mar­tin has been sen­tenced to four years in prison for break­ing in­to a shop.

Gary Lewis, of Mer­cer Road, Diego Mar­tin, re­ceived the sen­tence from Mag­is­trate Nizam Khan af­ter he plead­ed guilty to store break­ing and lar­ce­ny in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day.

Lewis, who rep­re­sent­ed him­self, plead­ed with Khan to fine him. How­ev­er, Khan agreed with po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Karene Box­hill that a cus­to­di­al sen­tence was more ap­pro­pri­ate in the case, as Lewis had 20 pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions for sim­i­lar of­fences.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Khan said the of­fence was far too preva­lent and af­fect­ed the abil­i­ty of busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als to op­er­ate freely.

“This type of lar­ce­ny has be­come a scourge in our so­ci­ety and has neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed our econ­o­my,” Khan said.

As part of his rul­ing, Khan or­dered that PC Ke­ston James, the po­lice of­fi­cer who caught Lewis red-hand­ed, re­ceive a $500 re­ward from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Reporter: Sascha Wilson