Shamarlee Weekes has been sentenced to eight years in prison for wounding an elderly man by chopping him on the head twice in July 2017. He had pleaded guilty to the offence several weeks ago but was only sentenced yesterday in the High Court.
Justice Iain Morley handed down the sentence after a psychiatric report showed that although Weekes is living with a mental illness, he was not suffering from it at the time of the incident. He also ordered that while Weekes is serving his jail sentence, he should be provided with his medication.
The victim, Horace Desvignes, was 62 years old at the time and he was Weekes’ neighbour in Herberts.
The evidence was that on July 17, 2017 at around 8:45 p.m., Desvignes was at Weekes’ home where he was talking with Weekes’ stepmother who had called him over and asked him to help her move her stepson. At the time, Weekes was lying in the yard and it was about to rain.
Weekes got up on his own and went on the gallery, and when his stepmother asked him what happened to him, he told her he had ingested detergent. He then went into the living room and was sitting there
When Desvignes approached the gallery, Weekes got up from the chair, came out the house, grabbed a cutlass from behind the washing machine and chopped his neighbour on the head.
He swung the cutlass more than once. The weapon was eventually wrestled from Weekes’ hands and his victim was rushed to Mount St. John’s Medical Centre.
There, the doctors had to use 40 stitches to close the head wound and several stitches were used to suture his right index finger which was cut when he held onto the cutlass to stop the attack.
Weekes was arrested shortly afterwards. Back when the incident occurred, the police said residents reported to them that Weekes was of unsound mind and lived on the street from time to time.