Harold Dey, who had murdered his girlfriend Samantha Gordon at their home on the Corentyne on March 9, 1998 and failed in a suicide bid before fleeing to the interior where he married and fathered a child prior to being held in September 2005, was yesterday sentenced to 10 years jail.
He appeared before Justice Winston Patterson at the Berbice Assizes.
Dey, who was initially charged with murder, had on June 30 last confessed to the lesser count of manslaughter which was accepted by State Counsel Fabayo Azore.
Defence Counsel Michael Baird in a mitigation plea said the act was the result of a secret love affair and acknowledged that his client was jealous.
This was his first infringement of the law and after being confronted with the magnitude of his folly, Dey was deeply sorry, the defence counsel told the court, adding that the man in the dock had been a remanded prisoner for four years.
According to Baird, Dey had to live with the fact that a life had been lost at his hands.
Asked by the judge what he had to say prior to sentencing, Dey quickly stood in the dock and using a notebook he narrated his story which lasted almost half an hour.
On completion the judge commented on his excellent diction. The notebook was later passed around the court on instructions from the judge who also noted the prisoner’s calligraphy.
Dey, reading from a notepad which he bought from the prison shop, said that as a child he had watched his father instill moral values and discipline into his older siblings along with the necessary education for career guidance. However, throughout his school life he secretly competed with his classmates to be number one and was successful to an extent that he was an ‘A’ student.
At age fifteen, his desire was to become a lawyer or an accountant but because of an economic crisis that was not attainable.
However Dey said he was a trained boiler operator and a specialist in timber seasoning.
“When someone errs they are most times judged harshly and punished by traditional criminal justice which at times is severe,” related the prisoner as he paused, looking towards the judge.
The prisoner said further, “I am a staunch practicing Christian. There is forgiveness, there is washing, there is cleansing, there is restoration and there is refinement in Jesus. God gives us the opportunity to change and repent.”
As a remanded prisoner, Dey recalled that he was selected to do infrastructure work due to his conduct and professional skills.
“Living in prison has challenges, however attitudes, systems and cultures in prison do not help in reformation … I need the opportunity to speak for the voiceless, that will result in education and transformation. It is my desire to speak the gospel of Christ which brings peace and salvation….I am a mature man, aged 43 years. I am fully developed, physically and mentally and I stand to face the penalty.”
In a plea for leniency, he described the commission of the offence “as senseless, a blunder in his life,” and expressed regret to his relatives and those of the deceased as well as his immediate family.
In a statement taken on September 12, 2005, Dey confessed to chopping Gordon with a cutlass and then he drank Shelltox in a suicide bid, but said he was taken to the New Amsterdam hospital where the insecticide was flushed out of his body and he subsequently fled to the interior.
