Les Charles Critchlow, who was due to be sentenced for killing his brother-in-law, Terrence Adams, yesterday changed his plea to not guilty.
Critchlow had previously indicated that he would no longer be going through with a trial and would instead accept responsibility for the killing of Adams.
However, he had a change of heart when he appeared before Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry yesterday at the High Court in Georgetown yesterday. He will now have to await the fixture of a date for his trial.
Critchlow was indicted for murder but agreed to plead to manslaughter, and Justice Sewnarine-Beharry had deferred sentencing him to facilitate the presentation of a probation report.
He had accepted that on May 12th, 2016, at Haslington, East Coast Demerara, he unlawfully killed Adams.
Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken had said that on the night in question Critchlow went into Adams’ shop at Haslington and stabbed him in what she described as an “unprovoked and vicious” attack.
The brother of the deceased, Leyland Nelson, who testified, had recalled Adams having a conversation with the accused earlier on the day in question about money which he (Critchlow) owed to Adams.
Critchlow’s daughter-in-law Shellon Marks and his reputed wife Janice Nelson had both also testified about arguments between the two men and they had corroborated each other’s account of seeing Critchlow leaving the home on the night in question with a knife stashed in the waist of his pants.
Janice had said that given certain remarks Critchlow had made earlier regarding her brother (the deceased), she told Marks to place a call to him (Adams) informing him to be safe, as Critchlow had left the yard with a knife.
In her testimony, Marks had said that she did try to make the call but was unsuccessful as the Digicel network was down at the time.
The cause of Adams’ death had been given as multiple incised wounds.
According to reports, Adams was at his shop when Critchlow visited and an argument ensued.
An eyewitness had related to this newspaper that the two men were arguing about some work that Critchlow was contracted to do at Janice’s residence and which Adams thought was not properly done.
Janice had told the court about this in her testimony.
The eyewitness related that after the argument ensued, Adams related to the man that it was not the place to speak about the issue and told him that they would talk about it in the morning at the job site.
However, the eyewitness had said, “Les din wan hear that and he start to bad up and start telling [the deceased] ’bout wuh he gon do he,” prompting Adams to tell the man to leave his shop.
The aggravated man then pulled a knife from his waist and stabbed Adams in his lower abdomen.
“After he [Adams] get stab, he run about 50 meters and fall down,” the witness related, while stating that after Adams ran away Critchlow raced in the opposite direction.
