A 39-year-old man was yesterday sentenced to seven years behind bars for the unlawful killing of another man, whom he fatally stabbed during a scuffle at the White Castle Fish Shop in Georgetown.
Mark Anthony Barclay pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter for unlawfully killing Gordon Ross on the night of April 30th, 2016 at the White Castle Fish Shop, at John and Hadfield streets, Werk-en-Rust, Georgetown, where he stabbed the deceased with his own knife.
It was Ross who initially advanced towards Barclay with the knife.
According to the state’s case, which Barclay did not deny, both he and Ross were at the Fish Shop.
Prosecutor Abigail Gibbs, who presented the facts to Justice Sandil Kissoon, said that Barclay was entertaining patrons by dancing when Ross, “for some reason,” became annoyed and charged towards him and then started to beat him with a belt.
She told the court that Ross then pierced Barclay’s hand with a knife, which resulted in a scuffle, during which the latter retrieved the knife and used it to stab Ross.
In a plea of mitigation on behalf of his client, defence attorney Brandon De Santos asked the court to consider that his client had pleaded guilty at the first given opportunity, thereby not wasting the court’s time.
De Santos said that given all the circumstances of the case, the wrong message would be sent to society if a harsh sentence were imposed upon his client, while adding that it could easily have been his client who had ended up dead and the deceased instead of being before the court.
He also asked the judge to consider that his client had no antecedents.
Justice Kissoon, who noted that it was the deceased who was the aggressor, commenced the sentence at a base of 25 years, and after making several deductions for time served, mitigating factors and Ross being the one who advanced towards Barclay, imposed the sentence of seven years in jail.
