A Fancy resident Nyasha Bowens a 38-year-old mother of five children was on Wednesday December 12th denied the opportunity of spending Christmas with them.
The denial came when Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett sentenced her to a 9 months jail term when she appeared at the Kingstown Magistrate Court and entered pleas of guilty to the charges of depriving her employer Alston Dowers a mechanic of Brighton of one 3D ticket valued at EC$4,500.00 on December 8th, 2018.
The Court heard that on the date in question Dowers picked up Bowens in his vehicle to take her to his Brighton home to do cleaning. It is reported that while travelling he stopped his vehicle at a lottery booth to check his ticket and was told that he had won.
He reportedly placed the ticket in his pants pocket and went to his home along with Bowens. Dowers took his pants off to go to bed and he allowed Bowens to sleep over as it was already late.
The next morning Dowers went to his pants pocket to get the winning ticket to take in to the National Lotteries Office to collect his winnings but found that it was missing.
As a result, Dowers contacted the National Lottery and informed them about the stolen ticket. He was invited by the Office to view the recording done by cameras.
The recording showed Bowens and her sister processing the 3D ticket.
The matter was reported to the Police who carried out investigation which led to Bowens arrest by the Georgetown Police.
Before imposing sentence, the Senior Magistrate told Bowens that he has no sympathy for her since she had previous convictions of burglary and theft where she was reprimanded and discharged.
He also pointed out that her actions were that of a crook which was concurred by Prosecutor Corleen Samuel who stated when Bowens committed the act, she did not have her children in mind because all that she did was purchase items for herself along with a return from St. Lucia.
She was due to leave the country on Tuesday December 11th, 2018.
