Hardat “Vickey” Singh and Kapaldeo “Rohan” Singh (no relation) have each been sentenced to 10 years over the 2007 death of Brian Chinapen.
Justice Franklyn Holder imposed the sentences on the men, who both confessed to manslaughter, during a murder trial at the Berbice Assizes last month.
On August 8, 2007 at Chesney Village, Corentyne, the men hit a drunken Chinapen, causing his death. The man had been hurling disparaging remarks at them. At the start of the trial last March, the two convicts along with Roopdai Sukhram and Rajendra Lall, called ‘Rajin,’ were indicted with the capital offence.
State Counsel Dionne McCammon accepted the men’s guilty plea on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, while Sukhram and Lall were both acquitted.
Prior to sentencing, Probation and Welfare Officer Mitford Warde told the court that both convicts were the products of dysfunctional homes and had been neglected and subsequently abandoned by their fathers. He said too the financial constraints they faced also deprived them of the prospect of acquiring a sound education, which may have enabled them to be cultured and better equipped to handle what they perceived as provocation.
The court also heard that Kapaldeo Singh had dropped out of school at Grade Six, with no formal training or skill and had started working as a sales clerk in a haberdashery prior to being employed with the Guyana Sugar Corporation as a ‘rat hunter.’
He was credited for financially supporting his mother and siblings after his father’s departure but conflicts developed between him and his mother after he started a relationship with Sukhram, who was old enough to be his mother.
Hardat Singh, the only child of Sukhram, also left school at the Grade Six level and had worked with various persons involved in building construction. While the court heard that his life could be described as normal, doubts were expressed about his mother’s character, as it was alleged that she was previously implicated in criminal acts of a similar nature.
Prior to their incarceration, the offenders rented a two-storey house at Chesney Village, which they occupied along with Sukhram and Lall. Warde told the court that the men expressed deep regret for their actions and said they had only intended to give the victim a few lashes on the said night, because he was drunk and was behaving disorderly and had been hurling disapproving remarks at them.
During sentencing, Justice Holder told the men that at when they should have been asleep or doing something more constructive, they committed a senseless act. “A life has been lost, why did you follow up a drunk man?” he questioned, adding, “The man was defenceless.”
The main witness, Shameer Osman, of Chesney Village, Corentyne, Berbice, testified about seeing the convicted persons on August 8, 2007, beating the then 41-year-old Chinapen with sticks before placing the injured man on his [the witness’] front stairway. Chinapen was subsequently taken to the Port Mourant Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
A post-mortem examination revealed that the cause of death was shock, haemorrhage and a laceration to the right kidney.
