A man from Princes Town has been giv­en a 13 and a half year sen­tence af­ter ad­mit­ting to shoot­ing at a neigh­bour dur­ing an ar­gu­ment over an un­paid debt in 2006.

Ricky Ram­lakhan, of Cedar Hill Vil­lage, Princes Town, re­ceived the sen­tence af­ter plead­ing guilty to sev­en counts of shoot­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and one count of as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm dur­ing a hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Car­la Brown-An­toine, ear­li­er this week.

As Ram­lakhan was on re­mand for al­most 12 years be­fore fac­ing tri­al, he was or­dered to be im­me­di­ate­ly re­leased as he had al­ready served his prison sen­tence.

The charges stem from an in­ci­dent out­side a restau­rant and bar in Princes Town on No­vem­ber 26, 2006.

Ac­cord­ing to the agreed facts in the case pre­sent­ed be­fore sen­tenc­ing, Ram­lakhan’s neigh­bour Cur­tis Prescott was stand­ing out­side a restau­rant and bar in Princes Town when a car stopped in front of him.

Three armed men, in­clud­ing Ram­lakhan, got out of the ve­hi­cle and one went to speak to Prescott while Ram­lakhan and the oth­er man stood at the next side of the road.

While the man was speak­ing to Prescott about a debt Ram­lakhan owed him (Prescott), Ram­lakhan and the oth­er man be­gan fir­ing gun­shots in the air.

“Ricky Ram­lakhan then be­gan dis­put­ing the amount of mon­ey ac­tu­al­ly owed to Prescott stat­ing that the first man was re­pay­ing more than was ac­tu­al­ly owed,” it stat­ed.

Ram­lakhan fired sev­er­al shots at Prescott’s feet, which missed. He then walked up to Prescott and hit him on his face with the gun.

Ram­lakhan and the men then got in­to the ve­hi­cle and drove away.

Prescott made a re­port to po­lice and the ve­hi­cle was in­ter­cept­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers short­ly af­ter.

There was a shoot-out with the of­fi­cers and all three men were wound­ed, while the of­fi­cers es­caped un­scathed.

In Oc­to­ber, last year, Ram­lakhan re­quest­ed a max­i­mum sen­tence in­di­ca­tion, in which Jus­tice Brown-An­toine re­vealed the sen­tence he would face if he plead­ed guilty to the of­fences and avoid­ed a tri­al.

In re­la­tion to the shoot­ing with in­tent charges, Jus­tice Brown-An­toine be­gan with a start­ing point of 15 years in prison and re­duced it by a third due to his guilty pleas.

She or­dered that the sen­tences for the sev­en of­fences run con­cur­rent­ly.

Deal­ing with the as­sault charge, Jus­tice Brown-An­toine be­gan with a start­ing point of five years and re­duced it to three and half years.

As she found no mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in Ram­lakhan’s case, Jus­tice Brown-An­toine ruled that his sen­tences for both of­fences should run con­sec­u­tive­ly not con­cur­rent­ly.

Ram­lakhan was rep­re­sent­ed by Khadi­ja Bed­deau of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers De­part­ment, while Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller pros­e­cut­ed.