Almost five years to the day after he tried to kill a woman by severing one of her hands with a cutlass, former cane harvester Warren Dennis was on Friday handed an eight-year sentence for the crime.
However, with his time on remand awaiting trial being deducted from the sentence, Dennis will spend just about three more years in prison.
Last month, the 48-year-old man threw himself at the mercy of the Court and pleaded guilty to chopping the mother of three with a cutlass about her body on April 23, 2017, at Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara.
At his sentencing hearing yesterday morning, the seemingly apologetic Dennis sought to reiterate his regret about the attack he launched on the woman, even as he begged her to forgive him for what he had done.
In his address to the court, Dennis said he knows the pain and agony in which he has left not only the victim, but her three children, too, before stating that he is prepared to follow any directive ordered by the court, whether it be compensation or otherwise, to add some degree of comfort to the woman’s life.
He then commended for the court’s consideration the probation report, which described him as a model-prisoner and noted his participation in anger-management and academic classes, sports and his role as an orderly.
In her address, however, the complainant spoke of how the events of the day in question changed her life and underscored the embarrassment, low self-confidence and low self-esteem she now battles due to the stares of people she attracts because of her disability.
In tears, the woman also related her feelings as a result of being unable to comb her only daughter’s hair and not being able to work as a cook anymore after losing her hand.
She asked that her attacker be visited with the full force of the law.
Prosecutor Cicelia Corbin asked presiding Judge Simone Morris-Ramlall to consider what she said was the premeditated and unprovoked nature of the attack on the defenceless complainant, and the severity of the injuries she sustained.
Dennis’ intentions, she argued, were clearly to have murdered the woman.
Defence attorney Madan Kissoon, meanwhile, begged the judge to consider his client’s previously unblemished record, the fact that he had admitted to what he had done and that he had been favourably reviewed by the prison authorities.
“He was weakened at an unguarded moment,” Kissoon said of his client’s attack on the woman, before he quickly added that Dennis was in no way attempting to justify his wrongdoing.
Justice Morris-Ramlall said that after considering both the aggravating and mitigating factors laid before the court, she found a base-sentence of 14 years to have been appropriate. She then deducted two years for mitigating factors. From the remaining 12 years, the judge then discounted the mandatory one-third for the offender’s early guilty plea, which took the sentence to eight years, but with the order that time be deducted for the period the offender had been on remand awaiting trial.
Dennis had been incarcerated following his attack on the woman back in 2017.
In addition to the sentence, the judge ordered that the offender be facilitated with counselling services commencing next month, until his release from prison.
Further, as recommended by Probation and Social Services Officer Wanda Williams, the Court also ordered that the complainant be provided the necessary psychosocial support needed.
The facts of the case related by the State had been that following a disagreement, the cutlass-wielding Dennis attacked and chopped the woman to her face, shoulders and left hand, severing it at the wrist.
Following his guilty plea, he had claimed he was “frustrated” at the time, which he said was the reason for his attack on the victim.
“Ah din know wah else fuh do,” was what he offered to the court as his resolve before going on to ask the judge for an opportunity to make it right with the victim.
After chopping the complainant, Prosecutor Corbin said that Dennis left her for dead in a trench, before fleeing the scene.
He was later handed over to police by his brother, while relatives rushed the injured woman to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she had been admitted for some time after.
