A man who pleaded guilty to brandishing a metre-long samurai sword on the streets of Hamilton was sentenced to three months in jail in Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Jamal Cooper, 20, of Anchorage Lane, St. George's, was seen by Police holding the sword in front of him outside Hilly's nightclub on Front Street with a group of three men. He originally pleaded not guilty but after a quick change of heart he told the court: “If you're going to remand me in custody I might as well plead guilty then.”

On March 1, Police officers saw Cooper pick up the white-handled sword and walk from Front Street to Court Street where he stopped outside of Supreme Court building number three. Outside the building Cooper was found without the sword in his hand. He told officers: “It was not me, I never had the sword.”

Cooper told Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves that the sword was part of a collection. “I was going to take it home, it's like a collection,” he said.

After hearing the details of the case Mr. Greaves told the defendant, who is currently unemployed, to get a job and to stop harassing society. “Why don't you go and pick up a book and learn something, don't you see a hammer or saw to pick up?” he said.

Jamaican remanded in custody

A Jamaican man was remanded in custody pending a deportation order after illegally living and working in Bermuda for almost two years.

Crown prosecutors said Shawn Francis, 32, told officials he “stays where he can and begs for food”. He has no fixed abode in Bermuda.

He appeared before the courts after senior immigration officers, following a tip, arrested several Jamaican men working on a construction site in Smith's Parish on February 20.

Francis arrived in Bermuda on June 15, 2002, and had permission to be on the Island for 21 days.

Pleading guilty to the offence, he told Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves he was working to help keep his mentally ill mother off the streets. “I'm the oldest in the family, I just tried to help her,” he said.

“Well, that's over now,” Mr. Greaves replied.

Woman used marijuana to ‘ease her pain'

An American tourist with a heart condition claims she smokes marijuana to ease her pain.

Donna Shaub, of Pennsylvania, was fined $1,000 at Magistrates' Court yesterday for importing cannabis.

Earlier her lawyer, Peter Farge, explained that she had had six open heart surgeries. He told Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves that marijuana helped her condition and that her doctor knew.

Mr. Farge also said that Shaub was on disability in America.

The court heard that Shaub, 46, flew in at 12.30 p.m. on Saturday, February 28 on US Airways.

Collecting her luggage in the Customs hall a drug sniffer dog twice approached her right foot. Customs officers asked Shaub why the dog barked and she said she was carrying “cigarettes”. Officers searched her and found a plastic bag containing four “homemade twists”. The material was analysed and found to be 1.67 grams of cannabis.

Mr. Greaves told Shaub to pay her fine immediately or “spend 90 days East”.