Man convicted of chopping neighbour gets life sentence reduced to 9 years

A male resident of Grove, East Bank Demerara, who in 2018 had been sentenced to life behind bars for chopping his neighbour, has had his sentence drastically reduced following an appeal.
Andy Boodram, called “Boy”, a 37-year-old father of three, had been tried for felonious wounding, and convicted by a jury in the Demerara High Court over the cutlass attack he had launched on his neighbour Deonarine Persaud, called ‘Anil’, on the night of September 24, 2011.

Initially indicted for attempted murder, the 12-member jury had, in March 2018, found Andy Boodram not guilty of that offence, but had instead convicted him in the proportion of 10 to 2 on the alternative count of felonious wounding.
The Court of Appeal, in an oral judgement on Wednesday, dismissed Boodram’s appeal against his conviction, but allowed his appeal against the sentence, finding that the life imprisonment imposed by trial Judge Navindra Singh was excessive in the circumstances of the case.
As such, the life sentence has been set aside, and a sentence of nine years’ imprisonment has been substituted therefor.
Initially sentenced on March 29, 2018, Boodram has been given full credit for the time he has already spent incarcerated.
When the Court of Appeal opened arguments in the matter earlier this year, one of Boodram’s lawyers, Dr Kim Kyte-Thomas, had asked the Judges to revisit the sentence, stating that felonious wounding is usually an offence that is tried in the Magistrate’s Court, where the maximum sentence would be five years’ imprisonment.
To support her argument, Kyte-Thomas had relied on the judgement in the matter of Bowman vs Marques, in which she said the Court of Appeal had found that 59 months in prison was a reasonable punishment for felonious wounding. That sentence, which was initially imposed by a Magistrate, had been upheld by the Court of Appeal, she had pointed out.
“Regularly in the Magistrate’s Court, this is to ensure that we have consistency in our jurisprudence…,” she said.

“The sentence awarded for this offence will be either a fine, or between six to 18 months in prison. We believe that this [life] sentence was unreasonable and excessive in all the circumstances of the case, and we therefore urge this court to find that our client has already paid his due to society, having already served 60 months, or five calendar years [in prison],” she had submitted.
In reply, Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, had told counsel that while they were in court to do justice, a distinction had to be drawn between the instant case and the one involving Bowman vs Marques, and the fact that Boodram’s matter had been taken indictably before a Judge and jury, and not summarily before a Magistrate only.
In response, Dr Kyte-Thomas had submitted that the case of Bowman vs Marques had dealt with a premeditated robbery, during the course of which there had been felonious wounding, and a finger had even been severed. In the instant case, she said, there had been a fight between two grown men over loud music.
Chancellor Cummings-Edwards, in responding, had noted that the Bowman vs Marques case had been tried by a Magistrate, who was constrained by law to give that sentence.
Addressing the question of the severity of the sentence, the appellate court concluded that the sentence imposed by the trial Judge was inconsistent with past sentences. After examining cases emanating from the very Court of Appeal dealing with sentences for felonious wounding and attempted murder, the Chancellor, who delivered the court’s ruling, highlighted the case of Deon Braithwaite vs The State for the offence of felonious wounding.
In that case, she said, Braithwaite — who had attacked the victim with a pitchfork and had inflicted several puncture wounds on him – had been jailed for 20 years; and on appeal, that sentence was reduced to 15 years. His victim’s left hand had been paralyzed due to the attack.
According to Justice Cummings-Edwards, although Boodram was charged under Section 57 (a) of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act, which stipulates a sentence of imprisonment for life for anyone convicted of felonious wounding, the life sentence should be reserved for the worst cases. Boodram’s case was not one such case, she noted.
As such, the Court of Appeal has resentenced the felon; and in so doing, it considered the mitigating factors, including his age at the time the offence had been committed, the fact that he had also sustained injuries and had to be treated, and his prior unblemished criminal record.
With regard to the aggravating factors, the Court of Appeal noted the serious nature of the offence, and that a cutlass had been used to inflict serious injuries on Persaud.
Moreover, Boodram’s other lawyer, George Thomas, had argued that the trial Judge had erred in law when he admitted the oral statements to form part of the evidence, which he then relied upon in giving directions to the jury. George Thomas’s issue had to do with the Judge’s failure to rule on the voluntariness of the caution statements.
However, the Court of Appeal held that this failure on the part of the Judge can be excused, given that he had provided the jury with adequate directions on how to treat the caution statements. Besides these statements, the court said, three eyewitnesses had implicated Boodram in the crime.
George Thomas’s complaint that Justice Singh did not adequately put his client’s defence to the jury was also rejected by the appellate court, with the Chancellor declaring, “Looking at the summing up as a whole, we are of the view that the trial Judge did not neglect to treat with Boodram’s claim that it was someone else who inflicted the injuries on Persaud.”
For her part, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Mercedes Glasford, had asked the court to affirm Boodram’s conviction. She submitted, “This court should affirm the conviction which was arrived at by the jury. They [the jurors] were properly directed by the trial Judge.”
On the issue of sentencing, she had argued that the trial Judge had the necessary information before him, including the facts, and a plea in mitigation was made by defence counsel. As such, she had advanced that it was for the court to determine whether, in all of the circumstances and the facts of this case, the sentence was excessive; and whether the correct principles were applied in arriving at the sentence.
“Based on the evidence, it was an argument; but the complainant [Persaud] would have been around his car, and he was turning in the opposite direction, and when he looked around, the cutlass came in connection with his head. He received injuries, was hospitalised, and had surgeries done. So, this was a very violent attack,” she had said in recounting the facts.
Besides the Chancellor, Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud also heard this appeal, while Abiola Wong-Inniss was the other defence lawyer.
Boodram was found guilty of chopping Persaud following a trial before Justice Navindra Singh and a mixed 12-member jury at the High Court in Demerara. The jury had returned its verdict on March 29, 2018, and Boodram had been sentenced on that same day.
During Boodram’s trial, Persaud had testified that Boodram, whom he had known about nine months prior to the incident, operated a shop, and would play music to entertain his customers.
However, Persaud said, he came outside and asked Boodram to lower the volume of the music, as he and his wife had a young child. He claimed that they exchanged expletives for 15 minutes after Boodram told him that he was not “turning down no [expletive] music”.
Afterwards, the victim told the court, he was speaking with a woman called Shirley, who shouted: “Anil, run! ‘Boy’ coming with a cutlass!”
Persaud said he did not run at the said time, but when he turned around, he saw “Boy” swinging the cutlass. Persaud noted that after he was chopped to the right side of his head, he used his hand to block the accused, and was dealt a chop to his hand.
“Boy” continued to broadside me even when I fell to the ground on my back,” he noted. He added that he lost consciousness, and only regained his senses at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
He said he was hospitalised until October 4, 2011, and had to undergo regular check-ups thereafter. He added that he also had surgery six months after, to fit back into place three pieces of his skull that were preserved in his stomach. He said that swelling in his head had prevented doctors from immediately conducting the corrective procedure.
Under cross-examination by Boodram’s defence lawyer Thomas, Persaud admitted that he became angry when Boodram did not want to turn down his music, but maintained that he did not attack him.(G1)