–for bludgeoning partner to death

LEONARD Allan, 64, who, in a drunken stupor mid last year, beat his partner to death with a wooden bicycle bar, was sentenced to 19 years in prison by Justice Brassington Reynolds at the Berbice Assizes on Wednesday afternoon.

Addressing the convict, who was initially charged with murder but later confessed to the lesser count of manslaughter, Justice Reynolds said, “Spousal abuse and alcoholism are a lethal combination. One of the worst scourges that are emerging in our society. The daily headlines scream the statistics.”

As he went on to say, “I consider that we come from a generation where men refer to their women as ladies… Our era was that of chivalry, where men opened doors and tipped their hats. But this is not your case. You succumbed to a drunken stupor…You are a serial abuser…”
Though sentence ranged from 25 years to life, the judge deducted five years for Allan’s not wasting the court’s time and confessing to the crime, and an additional year for time spent.
Meanwhile, in her report, Probation and Social Services Officer Odessia Semple noted that after serving the Guyana Sugar Corporation for 40 years in varying capacities, Allan retired and became Chairman of the West Coast Berbice Policing Group.

It’s a position he held for a year, before seeking alternative employment as a security guard.

He was initially married to one Gaitree Sankar in 1975, with whom he had three children, but that union was often plagued by domestic violence.

After one particularly bad beating, Gaitree reportedly suffered a broken hip, from which she never recovered. In the end, she would die, and to this day, his children have not forgiven him.

According to Semple, when Allan picked up with Shabana Ishack, called Babita, they were initially friends before the relationship became physical. But alas, within six months, she was dead, as that relationship, too, was fraught with abuse, and fueled by alcohol. There were even instances, Semple said, when Allan would strip Shabana of her clothing and beat her mercilessly, causing her to run naked into the streets in search of shelter.

In a letter signed by Rena Appiah, Shabana’s mom, and read by her aunt, Rosemary Brown, the court heard how traumatised Shabana’s death has rendered her and the two children she left behind.

However, after narrating the harrowing facts which led to Shabana’s death, State Prosecutrix Seeta Bishundial asked that the sentence reflect the gravity of the offence; how, instead of loving her, Allan beat her like an animal.

According to the facts, on July 3, 2018, at Railway Line, Rosignol Village, the couple was drinking when an argument arose because Allan felt that the food that Shabana had prepared had not been cooked to his liking, and began beating her with a bicycle bar.
A neighbour who lived some 25 feet away and witnessed the incident, claimed that the beating lasted some nine hours.