Thief who took murder victim's phone jailed
A thief's been jailed after stealing a murder victim's mobile phone in Liverpool
A callous thief who stole a mobile phone from the pocket of a teenage murder victim as he lay dying on a Liverpool street has been jailed for 3 years, 3 months.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that the phone may have held vital information which could have led to the victim’s killer being traced but thief Curtis Connick threw it away and the gunman is still unknown.
He discarded the phone in a litter bin by Liverpool”s Lime Street station after realising was connected with a serious investigation and police spent three days desperately combing a rubbish dump for it but without success.
Jailing Connick today Judge Alan Conrad, QC, said that 17-year-old Kevin Wilson was “brutally murdered by being shot in the back by an unknown assailant as he stood on a street.
“As he lay dead or dying on the street you approached his body and stole his mobile telephone. I reject the submission that you did not know he was at the least very seriously injured. For your own purpose you took his mobile phone, even taking a call on it.”
Judge Conrad said he accepted that he had not disposed of the phone to protect anyone involved in the shooting “but the effect was to deprive the police of a most vital piece of evidence in a murder investigation.”
It meant the police “expended a considerable amount of time and manpower” searching for it at the waste site where the bin was emptied.
He told 31-year-old Connick, who showed no emotion, “Your life as demonstrated by your criminal record has been characterised by selfishness. The theft of a phone from a person in Kevin Wilson’s position is about as low as it can get. To go and and dispose of the phone knowing that there was an investigation proceedings is even worse.
“It is hard to believe someone can behave in such a callous manner.”
In an impact statement from Kevin Wilson’s heartbroken mum, Jane Wilson, described by the judge as “moving” she said, ‘it was a double blow to me to find out that while Kevin lay in the street dying that someone stole his phone from him. It is beyond words almost.
‘Every time I think I think about him lying there in the street not being able to help himself I’m filled with a dreadful feeling of not being there for him. The person who took his phone could have tried to help Kevin but they didn’t.
‘If they had come clean lat or and admitted taking his phone or even just handed it in, it could have helped the police find Kevin’s killer. To this day no one has been prosecuted for Kevin’s murder.”
Judge Conrad commented, “In setting out the effects of what you did I cannot improve upon those dignified and measured words.”
Connick, of Hawkins Street, Kensington, Liverpool, had pleaded guilty to theft and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Kevin Slack, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that on the evening of February 7 last year Mr Wilson was gunned down on Holmes Street off Smithdown Road, Wavertree.
A nearby resident heard a noise that sounded like a balloon exploding and she saw Mr Wilson fall and lie on his back, unable to turn over. “She observed the defendant touch the body of Mr Wilson with his feet, as if trying to rouse him, however Mr Wilson did not move or respond.
“She saw a mobile phone light up in Mr Wilson’s pocket and watched as the defendant picked up the phone, answering it and appear to hold a conversation and began to walk away with it.”
Connick went to the home of his nearby girlfriend and told her he had taken a phone from “a crackhead” lying on the floor and had answered it and a man said, “J, are you alright? I’ve telephoned an ambulance for you’.
The court heard that J was a nickname for Mr Wilson. Connick then went to a drug dealer in Rock Ferry for cannabis. Meanwhile his girlfriend discovered that the incident involved a teenage boy shot in the street and when she told Connick was “sounded very shocked”.
When his family found out what he had done they were “shocked and disgusted with him.”
Connick was arrested on February 11 and initially denied taking the phone but eventually admitted doing so and then dumping it in the waste bin.
The court heard that police think the phone “had the potential to hold vital evidence” and the attack may have been linked to drugs rivalry.
Louise Santamera, defending, said that Connick, who has 14 previous convictions, mainly for drugs offences was genuinely remorseful and wished to apologise to the victim’s family.
“He accepts his actions were not only unlawful but morally reprehensible.”
She said he had not realised how serious the victim’s injuries were. When he answered the phone he had thought it was a joke and put it in his pocket. “There is no excuse for what he did.”
She added that he had a dysfunctional childhood and “had become desensitised to the plight of others.”