Sentencing of Shineka Gray’s killer deferred to April 12

Gregory Roberts, the man convicted of the 2017 murder of 15-year-old schoolgirl Shineka Gray, will have to wait until April 12 to learn how much time he will have to spend behind bars.

Roberts was given the new court date and was remanded following his latest appearance today in the St James Circuit Court.

The court was advised that the new date, which will mark the third day of Roberts' ongoing sentencing hearing, would allow presiding High Court Justice Bertram Morrison enough time to go through the lawyers' submissions in order to render a clear sentence.

Prior to the new date being set, lead prosecutor Andrea Martin-Swaby delivered her closing statements in which she urged Justice Morrison to give Roberts a sentence of life imprisonment with parole to be considered after an initial 50-year prison term.

Martin-Swaby cited several aggravating factors to justify the proposed sentence, including two convictions that Roberts had prior to his murder of Gray on January 29, 2017. Those convictions include a suspended sentence for simple larceny in 2014 and a six-month term for escaping custody in 2016.

“Can this court find that Mr Roberts can truly be rehabilitated? There is a habitual level of criminality that is being demonstrated, and not just habitual, but escalating,” Martin-Swaby asserted.

That declaration ran counter to the claim made by defence attorney Chumu Parris in his closing submission on Thursday, that Roberts was capable of reformation. Parris had urged Morrison to impose a starting sentence of between 20 and 25 years' imprisonment.

Roberts was found guilty of Gray's murder at the close of his trial on January 24 this year.

Gray, a grade 10 student of the Green Pond High School in St James, was last seen alive in Montego Bay on January 29, 2017 while on her way home from a schoolmate's funeral. Her body was found with multiple stab wounds in bushes in the Irwin community three days later.

- Christopher Thomas

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