At Berbice Assizes…
JUSTICE Winston Patterson yesterday sentenced Harlon Dey to 10 years imprisonment for the unlawful killing of his girlfriend, Samantha Gordon.

The crime was committed 11 years ago and the prisoner was originally indicted for the capital offence of murder but his plea to the lesser count of manslaughter was accepted by the State, with permission from the judge.

State Counsel Fabayo Azore quoted from the evidence of Adolphus Alder, uncle-in-law of the deceased, who knew the prisoner for eight years.

That witness said, on Monday, March 9, 1998, he went to work at Lot 52 Princetown, Corriverton, Corentyne, in the same yard in which Dey and Gordon lived.

Alder said Dey was looking through a window whilst Gordon, his reputed wife, asked the witness for soap powder to wash clothes.

Alder said he acceded to her request and, after the woman was found dead in the washing tub, with cutlass marks on her neck and blood on her head and shoulders.

Police retrieved the cutlass, believed to be the death weapon, in the kitchen but the killer could not be located, the Prosecutor said.

Azore said, in a caution statement he gave on September 12, 2005, Dey confessed to chopping the victim and admitted consuming the insecticide ‘Shelltox’ in a suicide bid.

However, after receiving treatment at New Amsterdam Hospital, Dey

fled to the interior where he got married and fathered a child prior to his arrest.

Azore said a post mortem examination revealed that Gordon succumbed to secondary haemorrhage due to a severed artery and vein, in addition to a fractured cervical spine.

The judge passed sentence after hearing a probation report on the convict, a mitigation plea and a compelling narration by the prisoner.

Probation and Welfare Officer Egla Babb reported that Dey accepted responsibility for the crime, from which he, initially, sought to flee and made himself a fugitive for seven years.

FLEEING
Her compilation said, while fleeing from justice, Dey met Annette Sinclair and they are the parents of Ashley Dey, now seven-years-old, following the October 29, 2002 marriage when the mother was 28-years-old.

Babb said, even in the current relationship, Dey abused his wife who has indicated that she would end it and move on with her life.

The compendium said Dey, the sixth of nine children born to Hector and Doris Dey, aged 81 and 74, respectively, grew up in Meadow Brook Gardens, Georgetown where he attended Lodge and St. Sidwell’s Primary Schools and Campbellville Community High School.

Subsequently, Dey enrolled at Guyana Industrial Training Centre (GITC), also in the city, but failed to complete his chosen course, which he blamed on an accident, in his early childhood, which affected his head and upper body.

Among other jobs, he worked with his father, in 1983, aged 16, at Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) but, at 19, he and his father had a misunderstanding which strained their relationship.

From 1986 to 1994, Dey was apprenticed to an upholsterer and joiner and, by 1999, he began working as a building contractor and, being proficient in the trade, he contracted his skills and frequented the interior where he worked on gold and diamond mining dredges.

According to Dey, he became intimate with Gordon, in what he described as a secret love affair.

Babb said he grew up under normal circumstances in a nuclear family setting and was instructed in proper moral values and ethics, often expressed and manifested a calm peaceful disposition and persons in the Corriverton community were surprised that he could have been involved in such an act.

FORCES
The officer said, however, Dey, while confessing to it, declared he does not understand what force or forces could have driven him to such violence against someone with whom he was in love.

Babb said he was remorseful of his action and is willing and ready to accept the resultant legal consequence.

Pleading for Dey in mitigation, Defence Counsel Michael Baird said the manslaughter was a result of the secret love affair.

Dey was jealous but, after being incarcerated for four years and experiencing his first infringement of the law and confronted with the magnitude of his folly, he is deeply sorry, the lawyer said.

Baird conceded that a life has been lost and Dey must live with the fact that it was at his hand.

In his narrative which the judge described as having been delivered with excellent diction, grammar and idioms, Dey, reading from a notebook, said he had watched his father instill moral values and discipline in his older siblings along with the necessary education for career guidance.

The prisoner said, throughout his school life, he secretly competed with his classmates to be number one and was successful to the extent that he was an ‘A’ student.

He said, by age 15, his ambition was to be a lawyer or accountant but, because of circumstances, neither was attainable and he trained also as a boiler operator for timber seasoning.

Dey said, while world and people, have high expectation of others, the effort and exhortation necessary for the purposes are neglected and mostly ignored.

“When someone errs, they are, most times, judged harshly and punished by traditional criminal justice, which, at times, is severe. However, I am a staunch practicing Christian. There is forgiveness, washing, cleansing, restoration and refinement in Jesus. God gives us the opportunity to change and repent. As a remanded prisoner, I was selected to do infrastructure work due to my conduct and professional skills. Living in prison has challenges and attitudes, systems and cultures do not help in reform. I need the opportunity to speak for the voiceless, that will result in education and transformation. It is my desire to speak the gospel of Christ, which brings peace and salvation. I am a mature man, aged 43. I am fully developed, physically and mentally and I stand to face the penalty,” Dey recited.

He agreed his act was senseless and a blunder in life and expressed regret for all the pain and suffering he caused.

Dey asked Justice Patterson to take into consideration the time he spent on remand and absence from his family, whom he failed to give the needed support.

CHANGE
The judge told him: “You have done remarkably well. I see no reason for you not to spend a lifetime in prison to change the system inside out. Some persons are truly converted when the prison doors clang on them.”

Referring to the testimony in the case, Justice Patterson remarked that Dey secretly competed with the students in his class and had a secret love affair that was exposed.

The judge told Dey the maximum penalty is life imprisonment but enquired of him, considering all he said, the mitigation plea, the probation report and the facts disclosed in Court, what penalty he was requesting.

Dey replied: “Seven years, Sir.”

The judge, in response, observed that there are principles in sentencing and precedents have to be considered.

Justice Patterson continued, speaking to Dey: “Because of your suave nature and compelling speech, you have to be protected from others. The deceased, with whom you carried on a secret love affair was 23-years-old.

“Life is a precious thing, given by God. We should regard life as sacred, cherish and nourish it. We should not want to deprive a person from that God given gift. That is what you have done. You have deprived the deceased from such a tender age to be devoid of life. You are a coward, having inflicted the injury, you ran and remained at large for seven years. While at large, you found yourself in the arms of another woman. You got a child and enjoyed life.

“You can jump high or low. It is not a severed hand or broken leg. A life has been lost. There is no answer for what happened, even if I give you life imprisonment, it cannot bring her back.

“You have the propensity to be irate at the scratch of a match. You are sentenced to ten years imprisonment, Make the best use of it,” the judge admonished Dey.