17 years jail for killing boy, 16

Shannon Cox was on Thursday sentenced to 17 years imprisonment for the 2017 fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Brian Yearwood.

Cox, 24, formerly of Kaneville, East Bank Demerara, was sentenced by Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall at the Demerara High Court.

Last month, he was on trial for the capital offence of murder, which alleged that on April 29, 2017, he murdered Yearwood during a school fair at Covent Garden, E.B.D.

However, a 12-member jury found Cox guilty of the lesser count of manslaughter.

Cox was represented by attorney-at-law Madan Kissoon, while the State was represented by prosecutor Lisa Cave.

During the sentencing hearing, Prosecutor Cave asked the court to consider the violent nature in which the teen was killed. She also highlighted that Cox has refused to accept responsibility for his actions even though he was found guilty by the jury.

Cave asked the court to send a strong message to youths to show that using violence to solve disagreements will not be tolerated.

However, Kissoon, while delivering his plea of mitigation, said that Cox was in “the wrong place, in the wrong time with the wrong company.”

The judge, while delivering her sentencing, said that Cox showed no expression of remorse. She also considered the mitigating and aggravating factors of the crime.

And so, she ordered that Cox serve 17 years in prison and that the prison authorities deduct from the sentence the time he spent on remand.

Initially, Cox was charged with co-accused, Andy Peters, 21. However, Peters was freed during trial after the judge upheld a no-case submission made by his attorney Latchmie Rahamat.

Charles, a student of the Covent Garden Secondary School, was stabbed while attending a concert in the Nursery School compound in that village.

The teenager of Grove was there with other friends when he was stabbed to the chest.