Mt Pleasant man gets eight year sentence for chopping his cousin

For an offence that could have landed him in prison for a lifetime, a 39 year old man will spend only almost seven years in prison for a vicious chopping of his cousin.

The anger generated from a history of disagreements between Ronald McKenzie of Mt. pleasant, Marriaqua and his cousin with whom he shared a residence, has now resulted in him serving a prison sentence of six years and 10 months after time spent on remand was subtracted from his eight year sentence.

McKenzie appeared at High Court #2 on March 17, where Justice Angelica Teelucksingh handed down his sentence.

McKenzie who was represented by Counsel, Adrian Odle pleaded guilty on January 17, after he was charged for wounding Oranique McKenzie with intent to do so on January 31, 2022.

Counsel, Cornelius Tittle appeared on behalf of the Crown.

According to a summary of the facts, at about 3:00 p.m on the day of the attack, the victim was at home when his aunt asked him to remove a puppy from a nearby gutter. The prisoner who was standing nearby was staring at the victim, but neither of them spoke to each other. There was also no disagreement between them on the day of the incident.

The victim was walking up the stairway to the portion of the house he occupies and at this point the prisoner was sitting on the porch wall close to the door.

As the victim opened the gate to his porch, the prisoner launched an unprovoked attack on him by taking a cutlass and chopping him on his left shoulder.

He began running and fell to the ground where the prisoner approached him and chopped him on his left arm.

The victim cried out to his aunt for help and the prisoner ran out of the yard and away from the area. Pieces of cloth, sheets, and towels were used in providing assistance to the victim.

He sustained a 3.5 cm wound to the left side of his chest wall, a 4cm wound to his left forearm, and a sutured wound of 16 cm to the left shoulder. The victim spent five days as a patient at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

Ronald McKenzie indicated that he and the victim had a history of disagreement as the victim and other occupants of their house were in the habit of interfering with him and his belongings.

He turned himself in to the police and cooperated with them during the course of the investigation.

Using the sentencing guidelines Justice Teelucksingh found that the consequences of the offence fell in category two, while the seriousness fell into the highest category.

She noted that the victim suffered serious physical harm and the impacts of the chop wounds have affected his physical activity.

The judge began her sentence at a starting point of 18 years imprisonment.

When she highlighted the aggravating factors of the offence she found that the offence was one that is prevalent, and this carried the sentence upwards by two years.

The mitigating factors of the offence, were that there was significant provocation, in that the incident occurred in a context of a history of disagreements between the prisoner and the victim. She also said that there was not any evidence of premeditation, and as a result the sentence was reduced by six years.

Aggravating of Ronald McKenzie was that he has a previous conviction of a similar nature; he was previously convicted for striking another person about their body with a cutlass.

Mitigating of him were the submissions and plea mitigation made by his lawyer, and also the contents of a social inquiry report. The judge also noted that Ronald expressed genuine remorse, he has potential for rehabilitation, and he also cooperated with the police.

These mitigating factors resulted in a three year discount from his sentence.

He pleaded guilty, and this resulted in a 1.3 discount of the sentence bringing it down to eight years.

He also had spent one year, one month and 22 days on remand and this was subtracted from the sentence.

Ronald McKenzie will therefore spend six years and 10 months in prison. He was also ordered to enrol in an anger management programme at prison.