October Assizes Completed
Some tough sentences have been handed down during the October Criminal Assizes of the High Court of Justice. There were 13 cases on the list to be presided over by Justice Neville Smith.
The case against Melvin Smith, who was charged with having sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13 years was dropped and the accused discharged. On a similar charge, Bevern Smith and Irvin Durante were each found guilty and sentenced to 12 and 10 years imprisonment respectively. Durante is appealing his sentence. There was one other case of alleged child sexual abuse against Jason Glasgow. However, the accused did not appear and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. This case was traversed to the next sitting of the High Court in March 2001.
Kenneth Freeman, who was charged with burglary, theft and handling stolen goods, pleaded guilty to the third count and was sentenced to 5 years in jail. He had another case against him for housebreaking and larceny and receiving stolen property. This was traversed to March 2001. Two other accused persons, Vern Forbes, charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and negligent driving in a public place and Sydney Varlack Malone, charge with burglary, were found not guilty and were both discharged.
There was also a case involving a female, Noreen Verna Simon. She was charged with several counts of forgery of a valuable security, uttering of a forged document and obtaining money by forged document. She pleaded guilty to the 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th and 13th counts. She was sentenced to 4 years for the 1st count and 5 years for the remaining counts, to run concurrently. She will only service 5 years. In the case of Martin Malone, who was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, he pleaded guilty and was fined $7,500.00 to be paid in three months or six months imprisonment. He will also be disqualified from obtaining a driver’s licence for two years.
Two murder cases were on the list. Sherwin Fahie was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His lawyers are appealing the sentence. The other murder case involves the four Americans, William Labrador, Alexander Benedetto, Michael Spicer and Evan George. This trial has been traversed to the next sitting of the High Court, scheduled in this jurisdiction, for March 2001.