The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal has quashed the 18-month prison sentence of a man convicted of seriously injuring another man by stabbing him with a knife.

Peter Albee was charged with causing grievous harm after he was accused of giving a man a 12-inch scar with a four-inch blade in 2017.

According to court documents, a woman was at her Palm Cay home having dinner with a friend when Albee walked into her house shouting angrily over being terminated. In court, the woman testified that her general manager had fired Albee that morning. She said she told him to leave that evening and to take his things but after she went to bed, she heard her son scream, “I have been stabbed!”

During her son’s testimony, he claimed when he tried to enter the cottage where he lived, Albee stabbed him from the side causing him to receive a laceration that required four layers of stitches.

When Albee testified, he said he had been living in the cottage since April 2017. He also said he had been fired earlier that day but was told he could remain on the property until the following morning. However, he said sometime during the night, the woman’s son and husband started threatening him while attempting to break down the door.

Despite his evidence, Albee was convicted and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. On the day he was sentenced, he appealed the magistrate’s decision on the grounds it was unreasonable and could not be supported having regard to the evidence. He further asserted the verdict was unsafe and/ or unsatisfactory given the circumstances of his case.

Last month, Sir Michael Barnett, Jon Isaacs and Carolita Bethell quashed Albee’s conviction and sentence after ruling the magistrate did not take his perspective into consideration when she delivered her ruling.

“The magistrate failed to appreciate the effect the threats of death, made by (the son), may have had on the appellant,” Justice Isaacs noted. “The appellant’s apprehension of an immediate attack could not be said to have been held unreasonably. He may have honestly believed that (the son) had entered the cottage intent on executing his threat to kill. The magistrate was required to consider the honesty of the appellant’s belief based on the fact that (the son) admitted to making the threats. The appellant was entitled to have his case determined by the magistrate on that basis. The magistrate fell into error when she failed to adequately, or at all, consider the appellant’s point of view.”

In their judgement, the panel also said they agreed with the second ground of Albee’s appeal.

“If the appellant honestly believed that it was necessary to defend himself, the next step would be the magistrate’s consideration of the force used by the appellant having regard to the threat as he reasonably thought it to be. However, the magistrate could not proceed to consider the next step because by her finding that the appellant did not honestly believe that he was in danger, she precluded any further consideration of whether the force employed was excessive and unjustified. In the light of the foregoing, the appellant’s conviction is clearly unsafe and unsatisfactory. His appeal is allowed, his conviction and sentence quashed and the matter is remitted for retrial in the magistrates’ court before a different magistrate.”