Derek Achong
A High Court Judge is scheduled to determine whether a man convicted of murdering two women when he was a teenager in 1994, is fit to be released next month.
Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas was expected to perform the sentence review for Chuck Attin during a virtual hearing on Wednesday but had to defer the process, as Attin’s lawyer, Arissa Maharaj, only recently filed her submissions in the case and did not serve them on the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Justice St Clair-Douglas gave Maharaj until tomorrow to serve the submissions and gave prosecutor Maria Lyons-Edwards until the end of the month to file her submissions in reply. He adjourned the sentence review to November 2.
During the brief hearing, Justice St Clair-Douglas noted that the court had received four reports on Attin that needed to be considered by him before deciding whether he should be released.
One of the reports is from the Commissioner of Prisons over Attin’s disciplinary record in prison and another is from the Chaplin of the Golden Grove Prison, over whether Attin had been receptive to religious teaching and instruction that was offered during his stint at the facility. A third report relates to a psychological assessment on Attin performed earlier this year and the fourth deals with a scientific assessment of the risk of him re-offending if released.
In 1997, Attin and Noel Seepersad were convicted of murdering 23-year-old Candice Scott and 31-year-old Karen Sa Gomes. Both women were killed during a home invasion at Scott’s home in Westmoorings on July 11, 1994.
Seepersad was given the death penalty but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
Attin, who was 16 years old at the time of the murders, was held at the court’s pleasure and given a mandatory minimum term of 25 years in prison before he could be considered for release.
Attin appealed the sentence but the Court of Appeal ruled it was not excessive considering the brutality of his crime.
During his last sentence review in 2015, Justice St Clair-Douglas ruled that Attin was not yet fit to be released.
“Clearly, you have changed but the real question is by how much. By releasing a man with no life skills who engaged in a serious crime is not something any court can take lightly,” St Clair-Douglas said at the time.
He advised Attin to enrol in programmes while in prison to make it easier to reintegrate into society upon his eventual release.
At the time of his last review, Attin, now 42, had almost three years left to complete his minimum sentence. He has now exceeded it.
Attin is also being represented by Daniel Khan.
