NIGEL Dodson, called ‘Little Man’, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence for killing an eight-month-old baby boy during the course of an arson in 2017, is now challenging his conviction and sentence.

In December 2020, Dodson, formerly of Kaneville, East Bank Demerara, was tried before Justice Sandil Kissoon and a jury at the Demerara High Court for the capital offence which read that on January 23, 2017, at Kaneville, he murdered Romain Seth in the course or furtherance of an arson.

He was later found guilty, and sentenced to serve 30 years’ imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.

Dodson later moved to the Court of Appeal, claiming that his conviction cannot stand, and was asking that his sentence be set aside, since it was unfair, too severe, and excessive.

This newspaper had previously reported that on the day in question, the blaze reportedly started around 02:30hrs after a neighbour and his friends threw “fire balls” into the house in which the infant and his family lived.

Word is that the neighbour had accused the baby’s grandmother of “snitching” on him and his gang to the police, which resulted in lawmen frequently raiding the neighbourhood in search of guns and drugs.

The baby’s grandmother, Michelle Menezes, believes that the fire was indeed as a result of a report she’d made to the police after finding a gun stashed in a tree in her backyard, allegedly by the youth.

Dodson, along with other villagers, reportedly used her yard as a shortcut to get to another street. Menezes said that after she reported the matter, the police started raiding the place, and eventually she started getting threats from the young man and his gang.

The police had issued a wanted bulletin for two other men for questioning in connection with the fire. The men at reference, Keon Ashby and Waynie (only name given), both of Kaneville, were reportedly part of the gang that had set the house on fire.