The Defendant, Seymour Patrick Ramsey (38), was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of seven years for the possession of an unlicensed firearm Tuesday (29) by Justice Charles Quin.

On the 23rd November 2012 Ramsey pleaded guilty to possession of the firearm that was an adapted Orion flare gun. It had been adapted to chamber 12-gauge shotgun ammunition.

On the 5th July 2012 the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service  (RCIPS) received information that the Defendant was at Welly’s Cool Spot (“Welly’s”) and that he was in possession of unlicensed firearm.  As a result of that information police officers went to Welly’s for observation purposes. Sometime after 1a.m. on Friday the 6th July 2012 the Defendant was seen with two others leaving Welly’s.  They left in a blue Hyundai motorcar and went towards Sound Way. The Defendant  was the driver of the car. As the car entered the car park the police entered through the exit, with their emergency lights illuminated   and blocked the Defendant’s car.  The Defendant manoeuvered his car in an effort to avoid the police. When this was not possible the Defendant got out of the vehicle and ran away.

The Defendant was pursued by the police officers that shouted commands for him to stop. The Defendant ignored these commands and continued to run away. As he was running the Defendant was seen pulling a gun from his waistband. The police issued further commands for him to stop, but the Defendant continued to run away. Eventually the Defendant fell and he finally gave himself up to the police.

At the scene, the police recovered the modified black flare gun and four shotgun cartridges. In addition, the police found a small quantity of ganja in the Defendant’s possession. No charge against the Defendant in relation to the four rounds of ammunition was made, as even after investigation it was not possible to establish the ammunition was viable.

Guy Dilliway-Parr, defense counsel submitted the Defendant did have previous convictions, but they were all for low-level offences – the majority of which were for either the possession or consumption of ganja.

He also said the Defendant was 38 years of age with a good work record and had no previous convictions. He had also pleaded guilty.

The lawyer said another person had given the defendant the weapon and out of curiosity he had tried to fire it at the beach, however; it did not work. There was no evidence to support that the defendant had any intent to engage in a criminal offence or any underlying criminality in this matter.

He argued there were exceptional circumstances relating to the offence that justified not imposing the minimum sentence of seven years of incarceration. This included describing the weapon as a “contraption” and being in a very poor state of repair.

In giving his reasons for imposing the mandatory minimum sentence of seven years, Justice Quinn said he found the weapon was a firearm despite Defense Counsel’s attempts at trying to avoid this definition. He said he couldn’t find any exceptional circumstances, either for the offence or the offender. Ramsay had not co-operated with the police, had made determined and persistent efforts to evade detection and when initially apprehended he was verbally abusive.

The judge said he took into consideration Ramsay’s guilty plea as well as the fact that he has no history of firearms or violent offences and gave him the full discount. He also sentenced Ramsay to three months imprisonment to run concurrently with the seven-year term for the ganja found in Ramsay’s possession during the incident. He also said the time Ramsay had spent in custody was to be taken into consideration.

“The Court is pleased to record that yet another illegal firearm has been taken off the streets,” the Judge said. “The RCIPS officers who pursued this Defendant must be commended for their quick thinking and quick action in apprehending the Defendant and recovering the gun, despite his efforts to escape from them.”