Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Al­most two years af­ter he stabbed his friend to death in Princes Town, a 34-year-old man has been sen­tenced to 11 years in jail.

Theo Ser­rette was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der­ing Shaque­al Ke­ston Hen­ry, but the state ac­cept­ed his guilty plea to the less­er count of manslaugh­ter based on provo­ca­tion. While the state and de­fence sub­mit­ted 18 years as the start­ing point, Jus­tice Mauri­cia Joseph-Patrick start­ed the sen­tenc­ing point at 20 years.

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing his guilty plea, time spent in cus­tody and oth­er mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, the judge re­duced the sen­tence to 11 years.

Ac­cord­ing to the facts in the case, around 6.30 pm on No­vem­ber 2, 2023, the ac­cused and an­oth­er man, re­ferred to as Bobo, were in­volved in an al­ter­ca­tion in a Chi­nese gro­cery at Mar­ket Street.

An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer in­ter­vened, and Ser­rette ex­it­ed the gro­cery on­to Cacique Street where he threat­ened to kill Bobo.

Short­ly af­ter 7 pm, Bobo and some oth­er men be­gan beat­ing Ser­rette out­side the Chi­nese gro­cery, while he (ac­cused) begged them to stop. The men then ran off.

Hen­ry, who had noth­ing to do with the beat­ing, was stand­ing near gro­cery. Ac­cord­ing to the facts, the ac­cused ran up to him and said, “Doh part me when men on me, doh part me” and stabbed him. Hen­ry was gasp­ing for breath when the po­lice ar­rived and took him to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty where was pro­nounced dead at 7.40 p.m.

Po­lice con­duct­ed in­ter­views and ob­tained CCTV footage, and on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2024, Ser­rette was ar­rest­ed in at a house at Mafek­ing Vil­lage, Ma­yaro. He was charged by PC Nel­son four days lat­er.

In pass­ing sen­tence, Jus­tice Joseph not­ed that provo­ca­tion was not a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, nor did it ex­cuse acts of vi­o­lence. She rec­om­mend­ed that Ser­rette en­roll in cours­es for anger man­age­ment, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, vi­o­lence pre­ven­tion and drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Ser­rette was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Michelle Ali, in­struct­ed by Sarah Julien, from the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment while at­tor­neys Re­bec­ca Trim-Wright, in­struct­ed by Bis­ram Ram­datt ap­peared on be­half of the State.