By FARRAH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
fjohnson@tribunemedia.net
A 46-year-old man who slashed another man’s neck with a box cutter when he refused to give him money was yesterday sentenced to eight months in prison.
Police arrested Gregory Sweeting after he caused grievous harm to a man on East Street on December 6.
He pleaded guilty during a hearing before Deputy Chief Magistrate Andrew Forbes yesterday.
The court was told that the complainant was at Kelly’s Lumber Yard when Sweeting approached him and asked him for some money.
The prosecution said when the man told him he was broke, Sweeting called him a “joker” and cut his throat with a box cutter that he had in his left hand. The accused then shouted: “One Order world” before leaving the scene.
The complainant was taken to Princess Margaret Hospital for medical treatment.
Sweeting was arrested a short time later. In an interview with police at the Criminal Investigations Department, he admitted to the offence.
Sweeting told the magistrate that he had had medication and alcohol in his system at the time of the incident. He insisted he wasn’t “normal at the time” and said he had no intentions of harming anyone that day.
In response, Magistrate Forbes told the accused that being intoxicated was not an “excuse for the commission of an offence” as he should have been able to differentiate between right and wrong even if he were under the influence of alcohol. He told Sweeting he was “lucky” he missed the complainant’s coronary artery by inches or else he would have been charged with murder.
As a result, he sentenced the accused to eight months behind bars.
“You cannot walk around slashing people,” the judge warned him.
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