CHARLES Albert, armed with a piece of wood, inflicted twenty-one lashes on his daughter’s head until she died under a star apple tree, outside her home at Lot 56 Princetown, Corriverton, Berbice.The crime was committed following an altercation over an iron, which Albert was using on December 12, 2011.
But after listening to the facts by State Prosecutrix Judith Gildharie-Mursalin, along with the probation report by Senior Probation and Welfare Officer, Voonashewarie Gopal, and a plea in mitigation by Defence Counsel Raymond Ali, presiding Judge Brassington Reynolds imposed a thirteen-year sentence on the father of four, who stood motionless in the Berbice Assizes dock, with his head bowed.
Earlier, the judge told the prisoner, “….I get a sense that you were unable to reason… I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist… In Guyana terms we refer to people as ‘coming and going’. A trained psychiatrist came here to say that you are fit for trial …Heard your tale of your service in the army… you get no credit for that..I am forced to consider the savage, brutal manner you snuffed out your own daughter’s life…It is sad, savage and senseless. You on your own admission administered twenty-one lashes …what caused you to ‘trip’ cannot be explained.”
“I have considered your age, in that you are a big man, you got credit for not wasting the court’s time, time deducted for the time spent as a remanded prisoner and I have put back another year for the savage manner you beat your daughter. You are sentenced to thirteen years.”
Earlier, Senior Probation Officer Voonashewarie Gopal said Albert was born on March 3, 1961 at Linden, Upper Demerara River to a legal union between Charles and Utline Albert. He is the fifth of ten children. However, at birth he was placed into the custody of his maternal aunt Caroline Ferdinand and her husband Harry, now deceased.
He grew up and still resides at Lot 56 Princetown Corriverton with his maternal aunt, now eighty-nine years.
According to the report, Albert worked with the Guyana Defence Force but left due to ill health, after which he never sought employment elsewhere.
Albert has fathered four daughters from two visiting relationships.
According to the mother of his three daughters, Ms Doris Garaves, the convict never contributed financially towards the maintenance of their daughters.
His maternal aunt Caroline Ferdinand claimed that after he returned from the GDF she took him to the National Psychiatric Hospital where he spent approximately three weeks after which he escaped and returned to Princetown.
However, Dr Mayda Grajales, when contacted claimed that Albert was never a patient at the mental health institution.
Meanwhile, presenting the facts Senior State Counsel Judith Gildharie Mursalin said on December 12, 2011, Anwar Hussain, who lived next to Albert, saw him and his daughter under a star apple tree arguing. He could not say what they were arguing about. Albert had a wood in his hand while his daughter had a cutlass in hers. Hussain shouted out to them, telling them to stop the argument as they were father and daughter.
Greaves then told Hussain that she would not leave her father like that as he had broken her teeth.
Albert and Greaves then went to the front of their yard. Hussain said he left to go to his step daughter’s house, some three house lots away. However, when he returned home about half an hour later, he saw people running into Albert’s yard and he went into the said yard and observed Greaves lying motionless in a pool of blood under the verandah.
Police officers went to the scene and escorted her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
The same day, Albert was told of the allegation, cautioned and arrested. He then gave a written caution statement to Sergeant Zoeanne Johnson and this was witnessed by Detective Constable Mark Fraser.
In his statement, he said, “Officer, Onica is me daughter. She does come and cook for me every day. Today about one o’clock, she came over and reach me ironing me clothes, she pull out de iron and me and she start to fight for the iron. She then run downstairs, and me run behind she and pick up a piece of wallaba that we does use to bake in the oven, and me lash she head about 21 times till she dead. She eyes pass me.”
Government Pathologist Dr Vivikenand Brijmohan performed a post-mortem on Greaves on 14 December 2011, and found that she sustained a gaping wound to the left scalp with extensive fractures and copious bleeding in the brain, as well as a lacerated scalp wound to the right temple with underlying fractures to the temporal bone and extrusion of brain substance.
The cause of death was recorded as shock and haemorrhage, lacerations to the brain and fractures of the skull.
Greaves was thirty-three years at the time of her death.
Mursalin, in her submission, asked that the court take into consideration that the life of a young woman was brutally cut short in a brutal, horrific manner at the hands of her own flesh and blood…her father.
“A father supposed to protect and cherish his daughter, not run after her and hit her in her head until she is dead as Albert confessed he did to Greaves.
“We may never be able to understand or appreciate what caused the relationship between this accused and his daughter to degenerate to such an extent, that he battered her to death. By his statement to the police he obviously felt she was disrespectful to him but in teaching her a lesson and exacting his punishment on her, he clearly lost sight of his role as a father and all it represents. I am respectfully asking Your Honour to show Charles Albert the same mercy that he showed to his daughter Roletta Onica Greaves.”
Meanwhile, defence lawyer Raymond Ali, conceded that the act of his fifty-four-year-old client was indeed senseless.
Nevertheless, the lawyer submitted that the father of now three girls has been remorseful and begged for leniency.
Last week, at a special hearing, Government Psychiatrist Dr Maydo Grajales reported that Albert was fit to face a trial.
On February 6, 2014, she had appeared before Justice Diana Inshanally and had related that she had been attending to the prison inmate over the last two to three years. During that period Albert was deemed unstable.
Then, the doctor was summoned to the court, as a result of a motion by the then State Counsel, Ms Renita Singh, who had submitted that the State was of the opinion that the accused is suffering from some defect of the mind and was unable to understand the nature of the proceedings before him, neither could he properly take instructions from his counsel Mr Raymond Ali.
Singh noted that the perception was drawn based on a previous trial, which was aborted during the October 2013 session, after the prisoner displayed abnormal behaviour.
“As such, in accordance with Section 176 of the Criminal Law Procedural Act, 10:01, the State respectively asks that a jury be empanelled to determine whether Mr Albert is insane or not, and whether he is fit or not to take his trial.
Consequently, the Cuban-trained mental health practitioner, who is commonly referred to as Dr Mayada, had noted that her client would be willing to take his medication, while on other occasions, he is loud. His behaviour is delusional grandeur as he relates how much wealth he possesses.
She opined that he does not comprehend the reason for his incarceration, and as such she did not believe he can understand the concept of the trial but maybe with treatment for the next three months. Albert was then on antipsychotic medication.
Thereafter, Justice Diane Insanally had ordered that the prisoner be returned to the New Amsterdam prison for continuous medical treatment for three months, before being reassessed with respect to his fitness to stand trial.
At this recent hearing, the psychiatrist said following a visit at the New Amsterdam Prison on Wednesday March 18 last, the prisoner, whom she did not see for four months, immediately recognised her from a previous visit.
“He recalled where he lived, why and the cause for his imprisonment. He appeared to be normal.”
By Jeune Vankeric
