Sixty-one-year old Wilson Chan was yesterday sentenced to 25 years in prison for the killing of his reputed wife, but will serve 8 years after deductions were made for time already spent in jail and mitigating factors.
Chan, who was charged with murdering Loretta Ramoutar in September 2007, at First Alley, Wismar, pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter on April 11 this year before Justice Franklyn Holder in the High Court.
Chan who was represented by attorneys-at-law Jailall Kissoon and Satyesh Kissoon, appeared calm throughout the trial.
Handing down the sentence, Justice Holder said the initial penalty for the crime was 25 years but it was reduced to 8 years because 5 years were taken off for the time Chan spent in prison, 10 years for his remorsefulness, age and other mitigating factors and another 2 years for the defence led by Jailall Kissoon, who asked the court to have compassion and mercy on his client.
Before the sentencing was made, the court was presented with a probation report, which was requested on April 11, by defence counsel Satyesh Kissoon. The report gave a brief recap of Chan’s life from his childhood to the time of the incident. The report also stated that according to Ramoutar’s sister, Chan was in the habit of abusing Ramoutar and at one point tried to force her and their daughter to consume a poisonous substance which they refused to do.
Jailall Kissoon, in reply to the report, said the allegations made by Ramoutar’s sister that she was constantly abused by Chan, were never reported by the couple’s daughter in the probation report, despite the fact that the daughter resided in the same home with Chan and Ramoutar.
Jailall Kissoon also said that important information pertaining to Chan’s efforts to make himself usefully to society was omitted from the report. According to the attorney, while in prison, Chan had completed an electrical and mechanical course, was baptized and he wrote English at the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) exams in 2010 where he obtained a grade 3. He said that his client has turned his life around and it is on these grounds that he is asking the court for a sentence that will not take Chan to his grave, but one that will see compensation and justice tendered.
Asked if he had anything he wanted to say before his fate was decided, Chan stood up, wiped his face and told the court that on the fatal day he had gone to his reputed wife’s house under the influence of alcohol to collect two suits she had for him. When she refused to give him his belongings, he said, an argument ensued and Ramoutar slammed the door in his face, which caused his dentures to break and his lip to burst. He added that he then tried to hold on to Ramoutar who went into the house and came back with a knife in her hand which she thrust at him. Chan said he held on to Ramoutar’s hand and a scuffle began which caused them to end up in the bedroom with Ramoutar being stabbed.
Chan then begged the judge and God to have mercy on him. “I am very sorry for what has happened and I’m asking for your mercy,” he said. He also highlighted that he had taken anger management classes in prison.
Before sentencing Chan, Justice Holder told him that he was old enough at the time to be more prudent of situations of this nature. He also told him that he could have used other means to retrieve his suits as the result was that he was placed behind bars before he learned a very important lesson in life.
