KINGSTOWN, St Vincent(CMC) – A 29-year-old mother of two, who admitted to having sex with one of the two murder accused who escaped from prison earlier this week, has been jailed for a year after she was found guilty of acting to impede their apprehension or prosecution.

Shadene Farrel appeared before a Magistrate Court on Friday, one day after police re-captured Veron Primus and Ulrick ‘Chucky’ Hanson at her home in Lowmans Leeward, on the outskirts of the capital.

She became the first person here to be charged with the offence of knowing and believing prisoners to be guilty of escaping lawful custody, and without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, didan act to impede their apprehension or prosecution.

She told Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett that when the prisoners turned up at her home early in the morning, she asked them if they had anywhere else to go, and they told her that the sun was coming up soon.

She said she was frightened and that she only left to purchase a phone because hers was not working, so she could not call the police.

She apparently knew Primus because her best friend’s boyfriend is related to him.

“Any reason why they came to you as opposed to somebody else? Do you know why? Any reason?” the magistrate asked her, to which the accused admitted that she would have video calls with Primus from his cell in prison.

The magistrate told her that the penalty of the offence she was charged with is a maximum of two years in prison.

“When you set about to do wrong, you have to contemplate the consequences,” he told the defendant.

The court heard that the accused knew Primus, who has been indicted in the United States, where he lived for almost two decades, in connection with the 2006 murder of Chanel Petro-Nixon, 16, in Brooklyn, New York.

She told the court that when the prisoners arrived at her home they were not wearing prison clothes. She said later that night, Primus made sexual advances towards her and while she was frightened, she still had sex with him. However, she added that he did not force himself upon her.

In his ruling, the magistrate told Farrel, “you are not as innocent as you want to appear before me. You’re not that innocent at all”.

The prosecution asked that a strong message be sent since those kinds of offences are not acceptable.

The magistrate sentenced her to one year in jail.

This is the second time that Primus, considered a very dangerous prisoner, has escaped prison, the first time being October 1, 2019. He was sentenced to 16 months incarceration for this.

Primus has been in custody since April 2016 when he was arrested and charged in connection with the November 2015 murder of 33-year-old real estate agent Charlene Greaves, whose body was found with stab wounds at her office on November 13, 2015.

Primus was committed to stand trial for that killing but escaped prison in September 2019. He later turned himself in after that jailbreak and pleaded guilty to a charge of escaping lawful custody.

Police said that Hanson was also serving a six-months jail term for having prohibited items in the prison.

He is on trial together with Glenville Harry and Jerome Ollivierre, in connection with the 2018 murder of Rodney George, a 50-year-old security guard, whose body was found with his throat slit on September 1, 2018.