Ex-policeman Waliaferro Joseph was last evening found guilty of attempting to murder his former lover, Uneatha McLean, at her Number 50 Village, Corentyne home, six years ago.
However, Justice Brassington Reynolds, at the Berbice Assizes, postponed sentencing to May 24, to allow for a probation report on Joseph.
Addressing the court, Joseph, who had led his own defence, said the incident was as a result of his “hard earness,” as his mother had warned him to stay away from McLean and her family but he did not listen.
Nevertheless, he remained confident that God would see him through, “no matter what the consequences will be.”
State Prosecutor Stacy Goodings had presented four witnesses, who had revealed that the former couple had previously lived at Sophia, Greater Georgetown, but McLean fled to her home village to escape abuse she had suffered.
Joseph followed and lived briefly with the woman at her Corentyne home but there, again, the abuse resurfaced and the couple separated.
It was during the separation that McLean, on the evening of January 7, 2010, was attacked in her home.
She was about to prepare dinner when she felt a hand grab her throat, while another gagged her mouth.
She was slammed to a wall. As she tried to free herself, she recognised Joseph, who then picked up a knife from a table nearby. Five incised wounds were inflicted on the woman before she escaped through some louvre panes at the front of the house.
She was rescued by police ranks, who took her to the Skeldon Public Hospital before she was transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital, then to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she was hospitalised for a number of days.
