JUSTICE Franklyn Holder, last Friday at the Demerara Assizes, jailed 46-year-old Morris Roberts called ‘Moses’ for 10 years after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The prisoner had been indicted for the murder of Martin Daniels on August 15, 2009, but his plea to the lesser count was accepted.The victim and several other members of the Wanakai Creek, North West District village had met at Jude Barrow’s residence for a ‘Kayak’, an occasion on which people in a community get together to help out one member for that day.
State Prosecutrix Judith Mursalin said too much high wine drinking was the cause of the problem.
Daniels had begun to taunt Roberts, telling him that he was living off old people’s money and the latter became angry and struck Daniels three times behind his head with a piece of wood.
Roberts ran away but Daniels was rushed to the Mabaruma Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Three days later, Roberts went to the police and reported that he was the man persons saw kill Daniels.
Jury disagreed
At his first trial, the jury disagreed on a verdict.
But, when his case was called, last Friday, defence counsel, Clarissa Rheil told the judge that the convict was a father of eight children and, in mitigation, she urged that the prisoner be given an opportunity to spend some time with his family.
Speaking for himself, Roberts said he was sorry for what happened during his drunken state and that rum was responsible for all that had taken place.
However, the judge pointed out that he could not accede to the request to send him home.
Instead, he approached sentencing from a starting point of 30 years.
From that, he deducted five years for the time Roberts was incarcerated and 15 years for his being a model prisoner as stated by the prison authorities.
Those deductions reduced the sentence to 10 years, for which Roberts thanked the judge before being led away to serve his time.