Tanya McNab, a Belize City resident was robbed at knife point on December 30th, 2012 in the George Street area of Belize City. At the time a man placed a knife at her and stole her handbag valued at ,000 which contained an I-phone along with personal items such as her wallet, credit card, passport and other identification cards.
It was her cell phone however that led police to the robber and his subsequent arrest and conviction.
After being robbed McNab used the phone’s tracking capability to let her know what the phone’s location was. That led police to an alley off Princess Margaret Drive and onto Gentle Avenue in the King’s Park Area. When police made checks in the area they found 23-year-old Ashton Grant in possession of NcNab’s I phone.
On Tuesday February 25th Grants’ trial began before the Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith. It took 2 hours to complete and at the end of his trial, Grant was found guilty of robbery and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment since this is his second conviction for similar crimes.
Minutes after his trial concluded, Grant admitted to committing the offense when he told the Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith, “I was frustrated, why I did it.” That’s when he indicated to the court he wanted to plead guilty for the offense but it was too late since the trial had already concluded.
In mitigation, he threw himself to the mercy of the court to take into consideration that he is a father of a little girl whom he said, “No one can care for her the way I do.”
But this is Grant’s second conviction for robbery and he was looking at 20 years maximum however, the Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith told him that she took into consideration the fact that he is a young father but that he should have taken into consideration his daughter when he decided to rob McNab. She then sentenced him to 10 years in jail
After hearing the 10 years sentence, Grant left the courtroom angry and as he was being escorted from Court #1 to the holding cell that’s when he yelled out, “10 years!”
He remained in shock over the long years imposed upon him.
In the trial, the victim, Tanya McNab took the stand and testified that, “at 11:00 a.m., that day, I had arrived home, when I pulled up to the garage to park when a slim built skinny guy on a bike approached me with a knife in his hand. He did not say anything, only pointed the knife at me and began to pull on my left arm where I had my bag…”
According to McNab, she and her attacker got into a struggle for a while and while she refused to let go of her handbag, she later released it and her attacker rode off with it.
When police tracked down Grant using the I Cloud program that allowed them to find him, he was found in possession of McNab’s $2,500 I Phone.
