Vindra Siriram was on Monday afternoon sentenced to 22 years imprisonment for the 2014 murder  of his wife at Friendship, East Bank Demerara.

In handing down sentencing at the High Court , Justice James Bovell-Drakes took into account of the age of the deceased, Shelly Ann Persaud , who was 22 years at the time of her death . The woman’s head was submerged in a bucket during the commission of the act.

According to the state’s case, between June 9 and 10, 2014 the accused allegedly murdered his wife. The accused pleaded not guilty to the offence for which he was indicted.

Earlier in April this year ,  a 12-member jury found Siriram guilty of the lesser count of manslaughter in the proportion of 10 to 2 after which a probation report was ordered by the trial judge after a request by made by his attorney.

Justice Bovell-Drakes subtracted the woman’s age from  from 55 years. From the remaining 32 years , the judge deducted four years for time served and another four years for good behaviour behind bars, arriving at a total of 22 years imprisonment.

Justice Bovell-Drakes told the convict to use the time in prison to re-evaluate his conduct and upon his return to his community he will be a better person.

He told the court that before the incident the convict was imbibing and based on the evidence the deceased was submerged in water, there were compression injuries to the neck (choking) and blunt trauma to the body.

The judge added that government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh gave the cause of death as asphyxiation due to drowning.

In his plea of mitigation, defence attorney Damian Da Silva noted the previous good character of his client and whom he  described as an industrious person who was committed to his family.

He pointed out that the man is not a menace to society and he said that the man clearly did not intend to cause the death of his wife because they had a heated argument and it ended with someone losing their life.

Da Silva added that his client is regretful and for the past four years in jail he had time to reflect on what occurred. As such he asked for leniency in sentencing and for the judge to temper judgement with mercy.He asked the court for a chance for his client to make amends for what happened.

Meanwhile, in response, State Prosecutor, Seeta Bishundial asked for the maximum sentence to be imposed bearing in mind the evidence revealed that the accused used to beat his wife in the presence of their children whenever he was intoxicated.

She added that the convict committed a heinous crime on the morning of his daughters’ National Grade Six exams and had no consideration that his three young daughters were asleep in the house when he took the life of their mother.

The state asked the court to send a strong message to those who consume alcohol, beat their spouses and eventually murder them.