Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 62-year-old man has been sen­tenced to four years in prison af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of chop­ping a man dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion in 2021.

Al­fred “Short­man” Cal­don was found guilty of wound­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry on Sep­tem­ber 8.

Cal­don was sen­tenced by High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh last Wednes­day.

He was ac­cused of wound­ing Ju­nior “Crawl” Marchan at La Pas­to­ra Vil­lage, Lopinot, on De­cem­ber 3, 2021.

Dur­ing the tri­al, there was no dis­pute that Cal­don had an al­ter­ca­tion with Marchan, was car­ry­ing a cut­lass, and Marchan sus­tained a se­ri­ous in­jury to his hand.

How­ev­er, Cal­don, through his at­tor­ney Christi­na Carter, con­tend­ed that the al­ter­ca­tion be­gan with Marchan throw­ing stones and glass bot­tles at him in re­sponse to him quar­relling over his pi­men­tos be­ing stolen be­fore he could har­vest.

Cal­don claimed Marchan at­tacked him and was in­jured while at­tempt­ing to take the cut­lass from him.

In con­vict­ing Cal­don, the ju­rors re­ject­ed the ex­pla­na­tion and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Cal­don was act­ing in self-de­fence, as they found that he de­lib­er­ate­ly used the cut­lass to wound Marchan.

Jus­tice Singh de­cid­ed on a six-year start­ing point for Cal­don based on the use of the weapon and the last­ing ef­fect of the in­juries on Marchan.

“Al­most five years lat­er, Mr Marchan con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence a loss of feel­ing in the af­fect­ed hand, is un­able to make a fist or prop­er­ly hold ob­jects, and suf­fers burn­ing, cramp­ing and pain ex­tend­ing to­wards his shoul­der,” Jus­tice Singh said.

Stat­ing that Marchan claimed that he has been un­able to work since the in­ci­dent and has to re­ly on neigh­bours for food and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, Jus­tice Singh said: “These mat­ters show a se­ri­ous and con­tin­u­ing im­pair­ment of his phys­i­cal func­tion­ing and in­de­pen­dence, as well as sub­stan­tial eco­nom­ic and emo­tion­al con­se­quences.”

Jus­tice Singh re­duced the sen­tence by two years based on mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors rel­a­tive to Cal­don, in­clud­ing the fact that he had nev­er been con­vict­ed of a crim­i­nal of­fence be­fore be­ing im­pli­cat­ed for wound­ing Marchan.

While she ac­knowl­edged Cal­don’s age and med­ical con­di­tions in­clud­ing a slipped disc, kid­ney stones and stom­ach ul­cers, she sug­gest­ed that these did not pre­clude him from serv­ing a prison sen­tence for the crime.

Jus­tice Singh de­duct­ed the 13 days Cal­don spent in prison af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed and while await­ing sen­tenc­ing.

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) was rep­re­sent­ed by Ke­ston Abra­ham and Rac­quel King.