Derek Achong

A 29-year-old man who killed his two-and-a-half-year-old step­daugh­ter in a fit of rage af­ter ac­cus­ing her of steal­ing mon­ey to buy snacks has been sen­tenced to 15 years in prison.How­ev­er, An­ton Bruce will on­ly serve ap­prox­i­mate­ly six years of the sen­tence, as the time he spent in re­mand await­ing tri­al and be­tween his con­vic­tion and the re­sult of his ap­peal was de­duct­ed from his sen­tence.

He was spared the hang­man's noose last De­cem­ber, when the Ap­peal Court set aside his mur­der con­vic­tion and cor­re­spond­ing death sen­tence af­ter it agreed that the judge who presided over his tri­al in 2009 had im­prop­er­ly di­rect­ed the ju­ry.In­stead the judges sug­gest­ed a manslaugh­ter con­vic­tion was more ap­pro­pri­ate for Bruce and in­vit­ed sub­mis­sions for a sen­tence.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing Ap­peal Court judges–Paula Mae-Weekes, Al­ice Yorke Soo-Hon and Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine–said they had con­sid­ered a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port, a let­ter from his at­tor­ney and a re­port from prison au­thor­i­ties to de­cide Bruce's sen­tence.Be­fore giv­ing their de­ci­sion, the judges sought the ad­vice of Snr Supt of pris­ons' pro­grammes Car­los Es­pinoza, who was sum­moned to ex­plain the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grammes avail­able to Bruce while in prison.

In the end, as part of the rul­ing, the judges or­dered that Bruce should en­rol and par­tic­i­pate in one of four anger-man­age­ment pro­grammes be­ing of­fered in prison.Be­fore be­ing led away from the court­room by po­lice, Bruce greet­ed his lawyer Jagdeo Singh with a smile and thanked him for his as­sis­tance.While on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip in 2009, he was ac­cused of beat­ing his step­daugh­ter Ka­reema Roberts to death at the fam­i­ly's Par­adise Av­enue, Mc Bean, Cou­va, home on April 8, 2004.

An au­top­sy by pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon des Vi­gnes re­vealed the child had 17 cuts and bruis­es and died of a lac­er­at­ed liv­er and blunt-force trau­ma to the head. In the ap­peal, the State was rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, who was mur­dered on Sun­day morn­ing.

In op­pos­ing Bruce's ap­peal, See­ta­hal had sub­mit­ted that even with the judge's mis­di­rec­tion the ju­ry's ver­dict would have been the same, as there was strong ev­i­dence, in­clud­ing med­ical re­ports and sev­er­al con­flict­ing state­ments Bruce al­leged­ly gave to the po­lice af­ter the child's death.As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) George Bus­by re­placed See­ta­hal in the ap­peal yes­ter­day.