Craft vendor gets back stolen hats

The Catherine man who was robbed of more than $200,000 worth of straw hats on his way home from the Denbigh Agricultural Industrial Food Show last week is now beaming with joy after his hats were returned to him.

Melton Brown said he was down on his knees Sunday morning for more than 25 minutes, praying that the publicity of the story in THE STAR would soften the heart of the taxi driver who fled with his goods while he was filing a report of other missing goods at the May Pen Police Station in Clarendon.

"Mi seh God carry them back because I need my hat them because it stress mi out. About 4:30 p.m. the phone rings, and it was the officer that I had made the report to at the May Pen Police Station. 'Is this Melton Brown?' I said, 'yes' and him say, 'Well, a lady turn up at the station with your things them'," Brown recounted.

According to Brown, he was told by the policeman that the taxi driver asked for his phone number to explain why she had fled with his goods, but he said he was too upset with her to hear her explanation.

"I don't have any interest in speaking with her because it took me eight days, and is only because I went to the media why she bring them back," Brown claimed.