Nishawn Diandre Prescod of Hinds Gap, Halls Road, St Michael, was sentenced to ten years in prison for his role in the incident that led to the death of Brinsley Warde on October 9, 2015.
Warde was in a stone-throwing altercation with three men near the exit of Queen’s Park. Prescod who was 18 years old at the time, was one of the three in the incident which spilled over onto Nursery Drive. The dispute turned physical with the men beating on Warde before one of the culprits fatally stabbed him.
Prescod, now 24, pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty of manslaughter in connection with the stabbing death.
Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Alliston Seale, who accepted the plea on the Crown’s behalf explained that the evidence compiled showed that Prescod was not the one who administered the fatal stab but was charged on the basis of joint enterprise.
Justice Randall Worrell presiding over the No. 2 Supreme Court handed down the sentence today while Prescod attended the hearing via Zoom from Dodds Prison.
Worrell told the convict that by pleading guilty to manslaughter he had accepted his role in the tragic outcome in which Warde lost his life.
“This is not a matter whereby one will be getting a slap on the wrist. That gentleman has lost his life, his family no longer have him, his friends no longer have him. He no longer has the benefit of being able to go forward in life, you do however have that benefit.
“You have expressed your remorse in respect of this matter and you have also thrown yourself at the mercy of the court but because of the seriousness of the matter, you will have to spend a period of time in custody,” the judge said.
Justice Worrell then imposed a starting sentence of ten years in prison pointing to mitigating factors to the offence. Among them, the fact that Prescod was not the person who “actually had the knife . . . not the person brandishing the knife . . . and that you did not commit the act with the knife.”
The court also noted that there also was “no planning” and the incident appeared to have been “spontaneous”. It also took note of the convict’s age at the time of the offence.
The starting sentence was reduced by a year, bringing it to nine years.
“The court does not think it should be reduced anymore because this is still a matter in which someone has lost his life. So the fact that you didn’t do the actually stabbing, the fact that there was no planning, the court does not think that it will greatly outweigh the fact that the major aggravating feature of someone’s death is to be displaced by any large amount of reduction.”
Prescod was then given a one third discount for his guilty plea which reduced the sentence to six years or 2,190 days in prison. He was further credited for the 1, 707 days he has already spent on remand giving him 483 more days in jail.