Kidnapper’s sentence cut by appeal court
Courthouse door, Grand Cayman
(CNS): The Court of Appeal has cut a ten year sentence given to a kidnapper in 2011 by two years, paving the way for the man to leave jail this summer. Allan Sywell Kelly (45), a Honduran national, was convicted of being part of a gang that abducted a local man and asked for a half-million dollar ransom in what was believed to be Cayman’s first kidnapping five years ago.Kelly was convicted along with Charles Felix Webster and given a decade behind bars but he successfully argued Monday for a cut in that term. Webster’s 10-year sentence was also reduced by two years during a 2013 sitting of the high court.
The appeal was the first from a list of eight criminal cases that the court will be hearing during this Spring session, which opened Monday morning.
Kelly was jailed following his arrest in the wake of the abduction and held on remand, so he has now served more than five years, which means he can expect to be released in July. He and Webster were also convicted, among other offences, of blackmail for attempting to obtain the ransom from the mother of their victim, Talbert Tyson Tatum (aged 23 at the time),, who managed to escape from the kidnappers on the second day when the crooks left him alone.
The men were sentenced alongside a third man Wespie Wilfred Mullings Ramoon, who received just five years after he pleaded guilty and gave evidence against his co-conspirators at trial. A fourth local man, Richard Hurlstone, who jumped bail ahead of the trial, was convicted in his absence. He has never been apprehended and remains on the Interpol wanted list. Hurlstone was Tyson’s brother-in-law and was believed to be the mastermind behind the kidnapping.
Webster was the man believed to have tricked the victim into going to a house in North Side, where Mullings and Kelly were waiting. Tyson was grabbed, kicked, choked, punched before he was tied up and blindfolded.
Seriously? Is this the message we send kidnappers? Kidnap, get convicted and be released in half the time you are sentenced to?! “Tyson was grabbed, kicked, choked, punched before he was tied up and blindfolded.” Thank god he’s not a small man or just these bits of his attack alone could have seriously physically messed him up. Imagine for a second this was your son, your brother, father, mother, sister, daughter… is 4 years really enough for someone who KIDNAPPED someone?! – NO – so WHY is this even an option????
This man is a well known criminal in Honduras and many Hondurans rejoiced when he as put behind bars here in Cayman. Honduras was a lot safer when he was put away, that is how dangerous he is. My question is, will he be deported back to Honduras? Cayman dont need his kind here. We need to weed his kind out.
I do quite enjoy Mr. Hurlston’s Facebook profile picture
This is one crime, that none of them should have been given a break on, do our courts know the terror citizens of central american countries live with because of these animals, the police should be demanding also that the mastermind be extradited as well, he of all of them should be rubbing the most time.
You people make comments of things you know nothing of, the actual master mind is still walking among you in Cayman.
Why are these judges reducing the sentences of violent criminals. WHY???????
Because the whole legal system makes more money on re offenders.
Oh come on now, there has to be a legal reason, surely!
You think so?In this world today,you need to question everything.