Two individuals who carried out a violent armed home invasion-style attack at a St. Vincent-based secondary school back in October 2022 have received lengthy prison terms following a unanimous jury guilty verdict at the Kingstown High Court. Gevonni Joseph and Marco Noel appeared before Justice Rickie Burnett on Monday to learn their final sentences for a string of violent offences that left two veteran security guards with permanent physical scars and life-altering psychological trauma. The pair was convicted on one count of aggravated burglary, one count of unlawful firearm possession, and two counts of unlawful wounding, after a nine-member jury cleared them of the more severe charge of wounding with intent. Court documents lay out that the two men had premeditated the break-in at Bethel High School in Campden Park, convening to plan a theft targeting the school campus on the night of October 20, 2022. Dressed in all-black clothing, wearing face masks, and armed with a loaded firearm, the pair scaled the perimeter fence and forced entry into the school building through a ground-floor window. At the time, two security guards – identified only by their initials JW and AR to protect their identities – were stationed in the school auditorium and using their personal electronic devices when they detected unusual noises. JW went to investigate the disturbance but initially found no sign of intruders, while AR dismissed the faint sounds as noise from a nearby discarded Chubby soda bottle. Without warning, one of the assailants struck JW hard on the right ear, knocking him unconscious immediately. The pair of intruders (who the court noted had been joined by a third unidentified accomplice during the attack) proceeded to beat JW relentlessly, demanding he hand over keys to the principal’s office. When JW insisted he did not have access to those keys, the attackers forced a piece of cloth and the barrel of their gun into his mouth. One of the intruders then left JW’s side under orders to assault AR, who was ambushed seconds later with a hard blow to the forehead as he was grabbed and wrestled toward the ground. The masked raider pressed the loaded gun to AR’s head and threatened to kill him on the spot. The group eventually tied up both guards’ hands and feet, leaving them bleeding profusely on the auditorium floor before fleeing the campus. After the attackers left, AR managed to free his bound hands, climb over stacked bathroom stalls to exit the locked auditorium, and alert local law enforcement. When first responders arrived on scene, AR fainted from shock and blood loss, and both men were rushed to a local medical facility for emergency treatment. Joseph and Noel were apprehended by police shortly after the incident and formally charged with the full slate of offences. The two guards’ victim impact statements painted a grim picture of the long-term harm caused by the attack. AR testified that he still bears a visible scar on his forehead, suffers from overwhelming anxiety that makes him perpetually fear a repeat assault, and has since given up all night-shift security work entirely. JW’s injuries were even more severe: he suffered a ruptured eardrum that left him with permanent partial hearing loss, chronic dizziness, and persistent pressure behind his forehead. The once-active security officer now rarely leaves his home, struggles with uncontrollable bouts of anger and fear, and fell into a dangerous cycle of excessive alcohol and tobacco use to numb his crippling post-traumatic stress symptoms, forcing him to abandon his entire career in the security sector. In his sentencing ruling, Justice Burnett calculated penalties by starting from a baseline tied to 50% of the maximum 30-year sentence for aggravated burglary, accounting for significant aggravating factors including the premeditated night-time attack, the pair’s pre-prepared armed setup for the break-in, and the total lack of any mitigating circumstances tied to the offence itself. After accounting for personal mitigating factors including the two men’s previously clean criminal records and their relatively young age at the time of the offence, then subtracting the pre-sentence remand time each had already served, the judge arrived at a total concurrent sentence structure. All separate sentences for the burglary, weapons possession, and wounding counts will run simultaneously, meaning Joseph will serve a total of 12 years, 8 months and 28 days in prison, while Noel will serve 12 years, 8 months and 14 days. In addition to the custodial terms, the court issued a binding order that both men must complete a full 5-year court-mandated counselling program to address the violent behaviour that led to the attack.
Men who beat Bethel security guards at gunpoint get 13 years
