A ‘TROUBLED’ young man who attempted to rob a St Helier jewellery shop and threatened the owner with a broken glass bottle in a bid to get himself jailed has been sentenced to three years’ youth detention.
Sean Bernard Downey even provided the police with a third-person witness report, giving his own description and telling officers where he had hidden the clothes he had worn during the attempted heist.
The Royal Court heard yesterday that Downey barged into the Stott and Willgrass Fine Jewellery store in York Street and demanded that the owner hand over watches.
He also thrust the broken glass bottle towards a woman who had responded after hearing calls for help.
The Superior Number of the Royal Court, which only convenes for the most serious cases, heard that the incident lasted around 90 seconds and occurred just before 9am on 21 July last year.
Immediately after the incident, the 20-year-old called the police anonymously, saying he had witnessed a robbery. He described himself – in the third person – and told officers where the gloves he had been wearing during the attempted robbery had been disposed.
He admitted one count of attempted robbery.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, said the shop owner noticed the bottle had jagged edges when Downey, who he said ‘seemed nervous’, threatened him with it.
Advocate Hallam said the victim was ‘in fear that the defendant would use the bottle to seriously injure him if he did not get what he wanted’, and was ‘terrified’ that it would ‘end up in his neck’.
The owner managed to distract Downey and press the panic button, and a woman outside, who heard the victim shouting, came to the doorway, although when she did ‘he [Downey] got aggressive and shouted at her to get away’. After the woman left to ask another business to call the police, Downey ran off to his accommodation.
The owner was not physically injured during the incident, said Advocate Hallam.
After phoning the police himself, Downey was arrested and cautioned. He told officers: ‘I have done something stupid.’
Describing a police interview, Advocate Hallam said: ‘The defendant explained that he woke up that morning and planned to rob someone.’
He smashed a milkshake bottle somewhere along the road on his way, and disposed of his clothing at Windsor Court on the way back to his accommodation, she added.
Advocate Hallam said Downey was at a high risk of reconviction, appeared to show ‘little remorse’ to the victims, and was ‘unable to consider their perspective’.
The court heard he had previously served time in prison and had committed 23 offences, including possession of an offensive weapon, grave and criminal assault and robbery, but had also struggled with serious mental-health issues and had a difficult start in life.
Advocate Allana Binnie, defending, said: ‘He made the decision to do something to go back into prison. That is how desperate he felt at the time of this offence.’
She said he had only been released from prison a few months before this offence, and said this was ‘an absolute cry for help’, adding that he did not have any permanent residence and no support for his mental-health problems at the time. ‘There was total co-operation at the outset,’ she added.
Advocate Binnie told the court that Downey, who came from a ‘troubled background’, wanted to use his own experience to help other children.
Advocate Hallam argued that Downey should serve three years in youth detention, a call which was not disputed by Advocate Binnie.
Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae, who was presiding, said Downey was being sentenced for a ‘very serious offence’ but added: ‘You are still a young man and there is no reason why you should not achieve one or all these things once you are released.’
Jurats Jerry Ramsden, Kim Averty and Gareth Hughes were sitting.
Commenting after the sentencing, Detective Constable Sam de la Haye said: ‘This was a very serious offence and, although no one was injured during this incident and nothing was taken, the whole experience must have been terrifying for the employee involved.’
