MURDER accused Marlon Fordyce, who is awaiting trial at the Berbice Assizes, was sentenced to one year imprisonment after confessing to setting fire to a mattress in the New Amsterdam Prison on April 15, 2014.

The defendant, formerly of D’Andrade Street, Newtown, Kitty, had initially denied the charge but had a change of heart and confessed to the crime.

He told New Amsterdam Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs- Marcus that the fire stemmed from an unattended lighted cigarette.
“I am sorry. I was smoking a cigarette and I fell asleep.”

Meanwhile, Police Sergeant Godfrey Playter, prosecuting, said that the defendant, a remanded prisoner, was housed in a cell which has various accommodations, such as a mattress and other items approved by the prison authorities.

During the said day, while the defendant was in his cell, other inmates drew to the attention of the prison authorities that fire was emanating from the cell in which Fordyce was accommodated.

Prison officials responded and observed that a single- size mattress was on fire. They then formed a bucket brigade to extinguish the flames.

When the prisoner was questioned, he said that he was smoking a cigarette and dozed off, when the lighted cigarette came into contact with the foam mattress, resulting in the flames. (Jeune Bailey Vankeric)