Judge to make decision on bail tomorrow

Bail conditions for three convicted manslayers will be regularised when they return to the No. 2 Supreme Court tomorrow before Justice Randall Worrell.

The adjournment was given moments after Shaquille Shamal Khalleel Bradshaw and Doniko Javier Alleyne both of Balls Land, Christ Church and Maria Antoinette Goddard of Parish Land C, Balls Land, Christ Church were found guilty of manslaughter in connection with the unlawful killing of 11-year-old Ian Elroy Gibson, a Princess Margaret Secondary School student, on September 20, 2009.

It took the eight-member jury just over an hour to reach the unanimous verdict for each of the three following four hours of summation by Justice Worrell.

Attorney-at-law Angella Mitchell-Gittens who represents Alleyne and Goddard urged the court to allow her clients to remain on bail pending sentencing.

She submitted that her clients had been on bail and in society for the past ten years and had never missed their court dates either at the Magistrates’ or High Courts. Mitchell-Gittens further argued that the offence had taken place when her clients were 12 and 14 years old. However, she said they were now in their 20s, gainfully employed and Goddard was now a mother of a two-year-old.

“We are cognisant of the fact that having now been convicted their status may very well change. But at this stage for the last ten years they have had an exceptional record for their attendance at court,” Mitchell-Gittens submitted.

Bradshaw has Arthur Holder and Danielle Mottley as his legal counsel. Mottley in making an application for her client to remain on bail pending sentence stated among other things that her client was also gainfully employed, had no issues with attending court and had no previous convictions.

In his submission Principal Crown Counsel Alliston Seale, who prosecuted the case, said while the three had now been convicted of a “very serous” offence he could not in “safe conscience” object to their bail and send them to an adult facility.

“I cannot look at them as they are now, I have to look at them as 12 and 14-year-olds, that is the problem. . . . But these persons would have been sentenced to a juvenile facility. I can’t in safe conscience ask that they be remanded to an adult facility now . . . . For that reason I cannot in safe conscience object to bail,” Seale said.

In the case, which began on June 3, the jury heard that Gibson collided with a car driven by Gian Holder on Sunbury Road, St Philip on September 18, 2009 after being in an altercation with the three, who also attended the same school. He died two days later at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital from his injuries.

In his closing arguments last week Principal Crown Counsel Seale said it was bullying by the three while next to a busy public road, that caused the death of Gibson when he was forced to escape a beating by fleeing across the street.
fernellawedderburn@barbadostoday.bb