Court orders more jail for wife-killer

Police will have to rearrest a Couva truck driver and put him back in jail although he has already served his three-year sentence for killing his wife. The Appeal Court found yesterday that the three-year sentence imposed on Parasram Dookeran by trial judge Herbert Volney was inordinately lenient and increased it to 12 years hard labour. The court said it had taken into consideration the three years Dookeran had spent in jail and when arrested, he would only have to served the remaining nine years.

Dookeran was charged with the murder of his wife Debbie Ann George Dookeran, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. The court accepted the manslaughter plea and Dookeran was sentenced to three years hard labour at the San Fernando Assizes on March 27, 2001. The State appealed the sentence on the ground that it was unduly lenient, but while waiting on the appeal to be listed Dookeran served out his three-year sentence, which in prison years amounts to 24 months and was released.  The appeal was heard in his absence and after increasing the sentence, a warrant for his arrest and further incarceration was issued.

In increasing the sentence yesterday, Justice Rolston Nelson said in cases of domestic violence, especially where women were killed, are matters which the court must send a strong message, whatever the circumstances. He added that a person should not feel that domestic violence should go unpunished. He advised  there were legal ways to deal with whatever differences one may have and warned that no one ought to take the law into their own hands. When the matter was called  before Justices  Nelson, Wendell Kangaloo and Alan Mendonca, attorney Vernon De Lima informed the court that while he was not retained in the matter, he had appeared for Dookeran at the trial. He recalled when he visited the prison in November 2002, he was told Dookeran had been released. De Lima said he later made enquiries from a friend of Dookeran, but the friend could not help with  Dookeran’s whereabouts.  De Lima told the court, “I feel the man knows about the appeal, but he is trying to get away because he figure the sentence will be increased.”

After some discussion, the court decided it will hear the appeal. Senior State prosecutor Trevor Ward said the sentence did not reflect parity of previous similar cases in the jurisdiction. He said it would seem as if the judge failed to take regard to already decided cases which would have reflected a range of sentences imposed and the attitude of the court. Ward noted that Dookeran had attempted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter at the Magistrates’ Court while being arraigned in the High Court. He argued that even with the discount (accepting manslaughter) and bearing in mind Dookeran’s pleas demonstrated contrition, it would not have caused the sentence to be reduced to such a degree. In addition, Ward submitted, even though Dookeran claimed he was provoked, there still remains a degree of culpability.  Dookeran, who is now about 44 and a father of three children, claimed that his 24-year-old wife had taunted him. She told him sex with other truck drivers was better than with him.

The facts of the case were that on August 4 1999, Dookeran and his wife had a drinking session at a bar in Couva. When they returned to his truck, an argument started about her alleged infidelity and rumours about her being seen on the Port-of-Spain wharf with other truck drivers. There also seems there was a letter from a truck driver arranging a rendezvous with Debbie Ann. When Debbie Ann allegedly told her husband how the other men were better than him in more ways than one and described how they made her feel when having sex, a fight started. Dookeran said he lost his temper and beat his wife on her head with the truck window handle. She died as a result.