FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2023
VOLUME 117, No.32
NIS good for 12 years Page 3
www.thevincentian.com
$1.5B from Africa Page 5
Farewell money Page 11
EC$1.50
Cain’s Garments Page 12
Ganja tree arrested Page 24
NO SENTENCING GUIDELINES FOR MENTALLY ILL determine whether he is safe enough to be released into society. If he is not fit to be released then, he would be brought back every two years until the Court is satisfied that he can be released. However, in sentencing Cambridge, Justice Burnett stressed that there is nothing in the sentencing guidelines to assist the Court in cases where persons plead guilty to manslaughter by virtue of diminished responsibility. Both Justice Brian Cottle and Justice Rickie Burnett made reference Justice Cottle had to the fact that there were no guidelines for sentencing persons who made a similar are certified as mentally ill. remark when he handed down a ABOUT THREE MONTHS after Justice Brian Cottle similar sentence on former youth cricketer pointed out, during a High Court sitting, that Jurani Baptiste of Sandy Bay, who had also there was nothing in the Eastern Caribbean pleaded guilty to manslaughter by virtue of Supreme Court sentencing guidelines that dealt diminished responsibility on March 9, 2023. specifically with manslaughter, by virtue of Baptiste was originally charged with diminished responsibility, another High Court murder, in connection with the death of Judge has reiterated the observation. retired nurse, Pamela Williams, 57, of Justice Rickie Burnett made the Kingstown Park in November 2016. observation while delivering sentencing Baptiste was also detained at the Court’s remarks on Friday, August 4, in the case of pleasure and would be brought back to Court 26-year-old Clinton Cambridge of Old periodically until the Court is satisfied that he Montrose, who had pleaded guilty to is rehabilitated enough to be released. manslaughter by virtue of diminished Speaking with THE VINCENTIAN, responsibility earlier in the Criminal Assizes. following Justice Cottle’s remark, Baptiste’s Cambridge who was diagnosed with bipolar lawyer Kay Bacchus-Baptiste issued a call for 1 disorder in May 2022, stabbed his father, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court to have Clint Boucher, to death during a visit to guidelines for Judges to follow when Boucher’s home in Sion Hill on July 14, 2019. sentencing mentally ill persons. Cambridge’s sentence is that he be detained “I trust they will come to that soon, but I at the Court’s pleasure. He is to be brought am urging them to come to it sooner than back to Court in the next five years to later”, Bacchus-Baptiste said.
NIGERIAN MEDICAL STUDENT DROWNS by WILLIAM ‘KOJAH’ ANTHONY MICHAEL ODU, age given as 29, came to St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a visiting student at the American University of St. Vincent School of Medicine. From what THE VINCENTIAN has been able to gather, he was in his final rotation of his medical studies but, unfortunately, did not live to fulfill his dream. Odu, police confirmed, drowned August 1 in the area between Young Island and Fort Duvernette, commonly referred to as Rock Fort.
Michael Odu, did not fulfil his dream of becoming a medical doctor. (Facebook photo) Continued on Page 3.