THIRTY-TWO-year-old Elroy Grenville, alias ‘God’ and ‘Rasta’, was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment after he confessed to inflicting a fatal wound on the neck of a fellow cattle farmer following an argument over a missing bull at Paradise Village, West Coast Berbice.

Initially facing a murder indictment, Grenville pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter, and his plea was accepted by the state.
Justice Dawn Gregory imposed the sentence after deducting six years for him not wasting the court’s time, and six years for the period ‘God’ had spent as a remand prisoner awaiting trial.
State Prosecutrix Ms Renita Singh revealed that on June 9, 2007, Grenville, of Belladrum Village, had a verbal altercation with Brentnol Reynolds, which led to him delivering “a chop to the neck” of Reynolds. The incident was witnessed by Claude Williams and Earl Mingo, who were both acquainted with the men since their childhood.
At about 16:00 hrs on that fateful day, Williams saw Grenville chasing cows and goats across the Paradise Public Road, and he overheard him telling Reynolds, “Country Man, how you go say I tie up your cow?”
The witness revealed that Reynolds was unarmed and there was no prior fight between the deceased and the accused at the time. But he noted that the accused was armed with a cutlass, while the now deceased Reynolds had in his possession a water bottle and a whip. The witness Williams shouted to Grenville saying, “Don’t do anything stupid!”
The witness revealed that Reynolds had gone to graze his cows, and had taken them halfway up the savannah before taking a break for lunch. He later observed that two of the cows were missing. Whilst searching for the missing animals, he saw the accused and a young boy in the backlands, and he accused Grenville of tying up his cows.
But the accused responded, “The lil boy you see me with is Sampat son, and is water coconut we drinking.”
Brentnol Reynolds turned to Grenville and made mention of, saying, something to his big brother Marlon. However, Reynolds repeated the word ‘Peace’ thrice, but witnesses recalled that as soon as the last word left his mouth, Grenville turned, saying, “You all does look for people kill out you all family.”
Reynolds replied, “Look me family de home, go and kill them.”
Consequently, Grenville turned to Reynolds and said, “Me go catch you before you cross the road”.
The witnesses recalled Grenville being armed with a cutlass in his right hand, while Reynolds had a water bottle and a whip as they faced each other. Grenville took a step backwards and fired a chop at the left side of Reynolds’s neck, before running away.
The wounded man, with his hand on his neck, walked 70 to 80 feet before staggering and falling along the roadside. A gaping wound to the exterior of the neck was observed.
In his statement to the police, Grenville reported that it was the now deceased man who had initiated the first blow, but he avoided being injured by ‘ducking’. He then retaliated by firing a chop, which connected with the neck of the accused.
In his plea of mitigation, Attorney-at-law Joel Persid Edmond noted that nothing was forthcoming from the prosecution in respect to his client’s previous conflict with the law.
“As a matter of fact, in the indictment he is known as ‘God’, been called by such since age 15 years, due to his fair and good deeds. While he has thrown himself at the mercy of the court, he has been incarcerated since June 2007, and has faced five magistrates while having to endure four preliminary inquiries,” the lawyer told the court.
With respect to the facts, the lawyer agreed that his client had fired a chop before running away. Nevertheless, he asked the court to consider what any reasonable person would have done in similar circumstances.
He questioned how a cattle farmer could have gone to the backlands without a cutlass, as presented by the prosecution.
Edmond also told the judge that his client has expressed remorse for what had happened, while noting that if the hands of time could have been turned backwards, the incident would not have occurred.

(By Jeune Bailey Vankeric )