Judge calls for Guyana to follow Trinidad hangings
A HIGH Court judge yesterday expressed the hope that hangings now taking place in Trinidad would soon happen here, as well. Justice Winston Moore said people are losing their lives too easily in this country and he stressed the need to carry out capital punishment drastically. He made the remarks when sentencing 39-year old John Lawrence called `Uncle Balgo' to 15 years imprisonment for the manslaughter of rape victim Tonesha Henery, 10, at Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo, in 1995. Lawrence, convicted at his retrial which ended at the Demerara Assizes yesterday, maintained his innocence. Defence Counsel Hubert Rodney asked the judge to bear in mind that the prisoner had been drinking heavily on the day the crime was committed. But Justice Moore wanted to know, from the lawyer, why the convict claimed he was innocent at the same time he pleaded that he was drunk. The judge said Lawrence was lucky the jury at his first trial found him not guilty of murder because, unless he is mentally deranged, he qualifies as fit for the gallows, once the evidence is believed. It was a case in which a mother had left her children with relatives to go and earn a livelihood when others would have done something else to get money, Justice Moore observed. The woman returned home only to find that her child had been raped and murdered. The judge called on the authorities to oil the gallows and make sure they are working properly so Guyana can follow suit what is happening in Trinidad, where nine people were recently hanged for the 1994 murder of a four members of a family. State Counsel Jo-Ann Barlow, who prosecuted at the just concluded trial, reported that Lawrence had a hitherto clean criminal record. (GEORGE BARCLAY)
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