A PROFESSIONAL cricketer has received support from Islanders while in custody after being convicted of robbery while visiting Jersey for an international tournament.
Kipling Doriga from Papua New Guinea slapped and robbed a woman of her mobile phone in St Helier in August before being arrested, charged and subsequently sentenced to three years in prison by the Royal Court.
Sarah Gomersall, chief executive of Jersey Cricket, revealed that Doriga had been given help in order to cope with incarceration in a foreign country where he was thousands of miles from home and had struggled to communicate.
“Aside from what happened, there was a person here with no family or friends who found themselves in prison with little English and no comprehension of how things worked,” she said.
“People don’t realise that prisoners have to pay for basic items like coffee, tea, toothpaste and shower gel – for several weeks Kipling didn’t have a towel to use because he didn’t understand how to get one.”
Both the Jersey Cricket official and the liaison officer for the Papua New Guinea team during the World Challenge League event hosted in Jersey during August have visited the 30-year-old regularly during his time at HMP La Moye.
Miss Gomersall said: “Whatever judgement or view you take of what happened, there’s a young man here who has ended up in a very difficult position and didn’t have anywhere to turn.
“I understand it’s quite common for family members of prisoners from the UK to fly over for regular visits, but that’s not feasible in Kipling’s case.”
She added that Doriga his team-mates had found the Jersey climate to be cold in August, and that as autumn went on he had subsequently cut up items of clothing to make scarves which he could wear at night to keep warm.
Miss Gomersall said Doriga had been given help with small amounts of money for his “prison account” that enabled him to purchase items, stressing that this was private funding rather than from Jersey Cricket.
The 30-year-old wicketkeeper, who has played professionally since he was 17 and has a partner and three children at home, has been able to “earn” coffee and tea bags in exchange for cutting fellow prisoners’ hair, and having been sentenced is now likely to be able to get a job within the prison that would provide him with a small income.
“If the shoe was on the other foot and someone from Jersey had got into trouble on the other side of the world, I’d like to think that people locally would look after my player to make sure they were ok,” Miss Gomersall said.
Jersey Cricket officials are in touch with their counterparts from Papua New Guinea and the International Cricket Council, the organising body for the World Challenge League, which is part of the qualification process for the 2027 Cricket World Cup.
Doriga followed court proceedings with the help of an interpreter in Pidgin, also known as Tok Pisin, the most common of ten official languages in Papua New Guinea.
Ms Gomersall said he had struggled to communicate with prison officers and fellow inmates at first, but that his English had improved significantly since he was first placed on remand on 27 August.
It is understood that Doriga might expect to serve around two-thirds of his sentence, with the court having recommended that he be deported once he is released.
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