Duo gets 9yrs for robbery, property damage

TWO young men in East New Britain were sentenced to nine years in jail with hard labour for robbing K21,000 from Tzen Niugini Limted and damaging a company vehicle.
The National Court circuit at Kerevat on Tuesday sentenced Francis ToUre and Henry Bruno to serve time at Kerevat jail after they were found guilty for armed robbery and wilful damage.
The incident happened on May 5 last year.
The two prisoners and five others were involved in the armed robbery at the premises of Tzen Niugini at Takubar Commercial Centre outside of Kokopo town.
Using a public motor vehicle (PMV) bus that they had hijacked, they followed a female employee of Tzen Niugini.
The court heard that the woman returned from the Bank South Pacific branch in Kokopo town towards the company premises when they  threatened to shoot her and the driver with home-made guns.
The gang threw objects at the company vehicle smashing the windscreen then grabbed the money bag from the woman and escaped.
“Crimes of violence have increased and my concern is that the courts cannot sit back and see people being robbed of their properties in broad daylight as though towns, cities and public roads in Papua New Guinea are no man’s land,” Justice Salatiel Lenalia said when handing down the sentence.
He said the two prisoners were in the company of other co-offenders who still have not been arrested.
“Where there is a group of people in the company of each other, there is a lot of strength to commit an offence more boldly without fear,” the judge said.
He noted that armed robbery was freely and frequently committed by young adults such as the two prisoners.
“You both are no longer youths and I thought you would have been wiser when you joined that group involved in the robbery,” he said.
Meanwhile, Justice Lenalia said the law on sexual offences are designed to protect children and women when sentencing an elderly man for sexual penetration.