A man who was blinded in one eye during a jealous altercation has been imprisoned for three-and-a-half years for stabbing the other man involved in the fight.
Alexander Smiley, 31, was convicted by a Grand Court jury in April this year of wounding with intent.
The jury had heard that in July 2024, Smiley, a father of two, had gone to the public beach on Cayman Brac to attend an outdoor party.
His wife was also there, but was in the company of others.
“Perhaps that fact was an early indicator of the situation between them that led to the defendant and his wife now being estranged and indeed may have been the genesis of the incident itself,” Justice Emma Peters noted in her 5 Sept. sentencing judgment, which was published recently in the Judicial Administration website.
The judge said, on the night of the assault, there appeared to be “some concern in the defendant’s mind as to his wife’s fidelity”, and he accused the complainant, whom he had not met before, of being involved with his wife.
“Recollections differed between witnesses as to exactly where and how that altercation took effect,” the judge said, “but I make clear straight away that I reject the defendant’s account that he was attacked by the complainant and others whilst he was lying on his back.”
The jurors had heard that the complainant had suffered stab wounds and a dislocated finger. They found Smiley guilty of wounding with intent in relation to the stabbing, but acquitted him of a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm in relation to the dislocated-finger injury.
Peters said the not-guilty verdict returned by the jury indicated they believed Smiley could have been defending himself. However, she accepted that the jury had convicted him on the basis that he was acting in excess of what would have been lawful self-defence when he stabbed the other man four times – in the shoulder, arm, armpit and chest.
“On the evidence at trial, I accept that Mr. Smiley may have picked up that knife at some stage during the alteration. I cannot be sure that he brought that knife to the scene with him,” the judge said.
Life-changing injuries for defendant
She noted that Smiley had suffered “life-changing injuries as a result of that night”, as his left eye, which had a prior injury, was further damaged during the altercation and is now permanently blind.
How that injury occurred was not clear from the evidence, the judge observed.
In reaching her sentencing decision, the judge took into account Smiley’s “tough start in life”, as outlined in a social inquiry report. The report noted that he was born to a mother with substance misuse addictions, had been adopted by a distant relative at a few weeks of age, and “has suffered trauma though his childhood by reason of his biological mother attempting to kidnap him on a number of occasions”.
It stated that he had been bullied as a youngster and was eventually expelled from school. While noting that he had suffered from excessive alcohol consumption in the past, the report indicated that has now ceased and on the night at the beach he was not intoxicated.
The judge determined, based on the report from the Department of Community Rehabilitation, that Smiley was at high risk of re-offending.
His defence lawyer, Oliver Grimwood, in the pre-sentencing hearing, had told the judge that Smiley was a man of good character, who, until the date of sentence, had held down full-time employment. He asked the court to pass the shortest sentence possible, in light of his circumstances and the fact that the jury “must have found the defendant to have acted in lawful self-defence at some stage of the altercation”.
The judge said she “must approach this as being a case involving an excessive use of force in self-defence”, and used a starting point of five years. Stating that Smiley had, up to the incident, led “an otherwise blameless life”, and taking into account his permanent eye injury, she reached a sentence of three years and six months.
“When a person picks up and uses a knife during an altercation such as this, people get hurt. That includes offenders themselves,” the judge said.
“There is a clear public interest in punishing and in seeking to deter knife attacks. But that need for punishment and deterrence must be balanced by the need to reflect the fact that this defendant will live with the effects of that night for the rest of his life.”
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