A labourer from Overland was sentenced to 10 months in prison for wounding two individuals resulting in one receiving 21 stitches.
However, Euroy “Ding Dong” Byron, would only serve six months, it being the longer of two prison sentences, which will run concurrently.
Magistrate Bertie Pompey handed down the sentences at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court after trial in connection with the Dec. 8, 2023 charges against Byron.
He was found guilty of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Marchello McCoy, of Magum, occasioning actual bodily harm.
After that guilty verdict, Byron pleaded “guilty and done” to a charge that on Dec. 8, 2023 at Magum, he unlawfully and maliciously wounded Nedved McCoy, of Magum, occasioning actual bodily harm.
During the trial, Marchello McCoy told the court that he was at one Ratty’s house watching some of his friends play cards.
He said there was a phone light attached to the roof of the porch of the building so that his friends could see the cards properly.
Mc Coy said he later saw someone come into the yard but he didn’t recognise the individual until the individual was on the porch and started hitting him with a big shovel.
McCoy said that from his voice and the light, he recognised the individual to be the defendant.
He said that during the beating, Byron accused him of breaking his house and stealing a boom box.
McCoy said he told the defendant, “No! Ding Dong, you take me for someone else. Is nah me [who stole the boom box]. Is Marchello dey here!”
The virtual complainant said that as the defendant continued beating him, the shovel broke Byron continued beating him with it.
He said he received cuts to his hand as he tried to block the blows.
At this point, the owner of the house shouted, “Alyo carry alyo fight ah road; dor bring alyo fight here!”
McCoy said the defendant dragged him into the road and continued the beating saying that if it was not McCoy who had stolen the item, McCoy had seen who had done so.
McCoy said while on the road, the defendant used the shovel to cut him on his left foot and “buss” his head.
In his defence, Byron told the court that he saw the virtual complainant jumping out from a window of his house.
He said that on the night of the incident he went by Ratty’s and held on to McCoy’s hand and asked him why he had moved the boom box.
Byron said McCoy pushed him and they started to wrestle and they both fell over a step on the porch where McCoy possibly sustained his injuries.
The defendant told the court that he then saw an old piece of rusty shovel and struck McCoy twice, once on his hand and the other in his head, after which he (Byron) walked away.
During cross examination by the prosecutor, Corporal of Police Delando Charles, it was revealed that McCoy received 21 stitches.
The defendant also admitted to hitting an elderly lady with the same shovel with which he beat McCoy.
“I don’t support vigilante justice. You don’t take the law in your hands,” Charles told the defendant.
In handing down his sentence, the magistrate said that all of the defendant’s convictions were for acts of violence.
“I’m going to teach you a lesson,” Pompey said and handed down the six-month jail term.
In relation to the wounding of Nedved McCoy, the facts, read by the prosecutor, are that on Dec. 8, 2023, at 8 p.m., the virtual complainant was at a chicken shop in Magum where the defendant accused him of stealing his boombox.
As a result, Byron attacked the virtual complainant with a cutlass resulting in injuries to his neck and left foot.
In mitigation, Byron said McCoy “bring the cutlass after me and I take the cutlass and gave him a plan. I end up and take the cutlass and run.”
In handing down his sentence, Pompey said that as with the first case, the court is limited to a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment.
He established a starting point of six months.
He considered the early guilty plea and reduced the sentence by one-third.
The magistrate settled at a four-month prison term which is to run concurrent with the other sentence.