Man ends up in prison after K29,400 robbery

By TREVOR WAHUNE
THE National Court in Kimbe has sentenced a man to 15 years in prison for armed robbery in which K29,431.41 was stolen from City Pharmacy.
Acting judge Justice Nicholas Miviri found Steven Wickless guilty. He was with seven others on Feb 13 last year who held up City Pharmacy employees and stole the money.
Police arrested the gang.
Wickless said he was thinking about his four-year-old son when he was in custody.
“I was worried about my four-year-old son and my mother as my father had died,” he said.
He apologised to the court for “breaking the law of this country”.
The court was told that Wickless worked as a panel beater with a motor company after taking spray painting and panel beating courses at the Moramora Technical School in 2009 and 2010.
He lives at the Gigo Two settlement and from Meselia in Kendrian.
Justice Miviri said it was the duty of the court to impose an appropriate sentence.
“To impose an eight-year sentence would not be proportionate,” Justice Miviri said.
“A robber or criminal takes a gamble that he will benefit or not from the offence. The property is not his.
“It cannot be used as a mitigating factor that he did not benefit from the robbery.”
The court was told that the City Pharmacy manager was so traumatised he resigned.