Seven years jail for robbing woman who helped him

IN September 2015, Keyon Bellille asked an elderly Gulf View resident for help, saying he had fallen on hard times.

The woman, Raoupher Rahaman who was 78, took pity on him and gave him $200 from her pension.

For her kindness, Bellille returned 20 minutes later with a gun and, accompanied by two other men, the trio robbed and terrorised Rahaman and her son.

Yesterday, senior magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine sentenced Bellille to seven years, six months’ hard labour, telling him his crime was a heinous one.

The 27-year-old father of one from Nice Street, La Romaine, went on trial before Antoine in the San Fernando First Magistrates’ Court on May 1 for robbery with violence.

Rahaman, now 81, testified that on September 4, 2015, she was in the basement of her home doing laundry when she saw a man enter her yard from a side gate which could not close. She said the man she saw was Bellille.

She said Bellille called out, asking to speak to her privately for a minute.

When she went into the yard, he told her he needed money to visit someone in jail. Rahaman said she agreed to help him, and left him standing in the yard.

She went to her bedroom where she removed two $100 bills from her pension and threw the money to Bellille through a window. She said she saw him bend and pick up the money, but later she could not recall if he had thanked her.

She went back to the basement, where she continued her laundry.

About 20 minutes later, she saw Bellille again, this time with two other men, storm into the basement area.

She testified that one of the men, whom she described as short and stocky, ran up to her and locked her neck. He was armed with a knife.

Bellille held her son and the three men forced them upstairs where they were tied up, beaten and robbed. One of the men even placed a knife to the woman’s throat and threatened to kill her.

In announcing a guilty verdict yesterday, Antoine said what struck her the most was that the robbery happened in broad daylight and that Rahaman had helped Bellille before he robbed her.

She asked Bellille if he had anything to say and he told her he was positive he was at work the day of the robbery. Bellille has convictions for similar offences. Antoine told him he did not come to the court as a man of good character.

Saying he had been in custody since October 8, 2015 on this charge, she sentenced him, saying, “This was a heinous act, especially given the kindness shown to you on the same day by the victim.”