DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 22-year-old man from Pe­nal will spend the next nine years in prison af­ter ad­mit­ting to stab­bing a neigh­bour to death in an al­ter­ca­tion in 2023. 

Leon Sher­win Bap­tiste was await­ing tri­al for mur­der­ing Car­lyle “Blacks” Hamil­ton when he was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter by provo­ca­tion, with the ap­proval of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), ear­li­er this month. 

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Bap­tiste dur­ing a hear­ing Thurs­day, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds be­gan with a start­ing point of 18 years, which was par­tial­ly based on the lack of pre­med­i­ta­tion and pro­vok­ing con­duct of his vic­tim. 

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds then ap­plied a two-year dis­count based on the fact that Bap­tiste had a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore com­mit­ting the killing and did not com­mit any dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences while on re­mand. 

She al­so point­ed out that Bap­tiste has good prospects of rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety af­ter com­plet­ing his sen­tence, based on his age and sup­port from his fam­i­ly. 

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for his guilty plea and de­duct­ing the time he spent on re­mand be­fore plead­ing guilty, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds not­ed that he would com­plete his sen­tence in a lit­tle un­der nine years. 

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds sought to ad­dress Hamil­ton’s fa­ther, who at­tend­ed the hear­ing vir­tu­al­ly. 

“You may think you de­serve a pound of flesh that I can nev­er give you. It is ac­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble. It would nev­er be sat­is­fac­to­ry, I ex­tend my con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly,” she said. 

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds called on Bap­tiste to re­mem­ber the ef­fects of his ac­tions. 

“An­oth­er man just as young as you is now dead. You will al­ways have that on your con­science,” she said. 

She en­cour­aged him to par­tic­i­pate in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and skills train­ing pro­grammes while com­plet­ing his sen­tence.  

“You are very young. There is so much you can do in eight years. Use every­day in prison to your ad­van­tage,” she said. 

Bap­tiste was ac­cused of killing Hamil­ton near his home at La­choos Road, Pe­nal, on Sep­tem­ber 8, 2023. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, two days be­fore the killing, Hamil­ton was lim­ing with a group of friends when they were ap­proached by an in­tox­i­cat­ed Bap­tiste, who voiced his dis­plea­sure about the con­ver­sa­tion they were hav­ing. 

Bap­tiste al­leged­ly threat­ened to shoot them af­ter they dis­missed his con­cerns. 

Two days lat­er, Bap­tiste went to his aunt’s house and con­fessed to stab­bing Hamil­ton. 

Bap­tiste, who was al­leged­ly hold­ing a blood-stained knife, claimed that Hamil­ton had ha­rassed and at­tacked him while they were out­side a shop, and he (Bap­tiste) stabbed him (Hamil­ton) in self-de­fence. 

Bap­tiste even­tu­al­ly sur­ren­dered to the po­lice af­ter he was at­tacked by res­i­dents. 

A post-mortem re­vealed that Hamil­ton died from a sin­gle stab wound to his neck. 

Bap­tiste was rep­re­sent­ed by Ja­son Jack­son and Krysan Ram­bert.