Murder sentence cut as Appeal Court says extra jail time ‘without justification’

The 30-year jail sentence handed down to a man convicted of double manslaughter in a Salters home invasion a decade ago was Friday reduced by the Court of Appeal.

The original trial judge, Justice Jacqueline Cornelius, had set the starting point for Deon Dacosta Maynard’s sentence to 25 years and then increased it to 30 years. But the appeal court justices set a starting point of 25 years less five years and 97 days – leaving his sentence now at 19 years 268 days.

Justices of Appeal Rajendra Narine, Jefferson Cumberbatch and Francis Belle said they arrived at a unanimous decision after reviewing the grounds of appeal over the management of the jury by the trial judge, incorrect directions in law by the judge and the sentence itself.

On August 2, 2011, Maynard and an armed accomplice, Charles Matthew O’Brien Fredericks, entered Arthur Chadderton’s Salters, St George home. Chadderton and his wife, their daughter and her husband along with their three children were at home at the time.

Shots were fired by Fredericks during the intended robbery and as a result, Arthur Chadderton and Gerhard Stock received gunshot injuries and Chadderton died at the scene while Stock died later in hospital.

Maynard was originally charged with two counts of murder. On February 17, 2016, he was found guilty of manslaughter on both counts and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He lodged an appeal.

The appellate court justices dismissed the challenge against the conviction. But they supported the argument against the sentence noting that the trial judge who set a starting point of 25 years and increased it to 30 years “seemed to have erred in the apparent increase without sufficient justification”.

The Court of Appeal varied the sentence and dismissed the appeal against the conviction on both counts.

The clock on Maynard’s new sentence which will run concurrently was set to start from October 5, 2016.

Fredericks pleaded guilty to lesser counts of manslaughter. Two “indeterminate” concurrent life sentences were imposed on him on July 30, 2012.

But the court dismissed his appeal on the grounds that the sentences were a breach of his constitutional right against excessive, inhumane and degrading punishment under Section 15 of the Constitution