Berbice labourer who killed wife in 2016 jailed for 20 years

A Corentyne, Berbice labourer, who stabbed his reputed wife to death back in 2016, asked the court for a just penalty in the Berbice Assizes on Wednesday.
Michael Benjamin, 45, of Ulverston, Corentyne stood seemingly satisfied in the docks when the sentence was handed down to him by Justice Brassington Reynolds.
He was charged for killing his reputed wife, Yunsen Brush, on October 17, 2016, and when the matter was called up for hearing, he pled guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter.
Reports were that on October 17, 2016, Benjamin went to a shop in his community where he met his reputed wife and after a conversation, an argument ensued. He then whipped out a knife and stabbed her. At the time of the murder, Benjamin had alleged that his reputed wife had taken a large sum of money from him and gave it to her mother to build a house.
The convict and his 39-year-old wife had been living together for more than 20 years.
The former cane harvester and his wife had four children together and at the time of the woman’s death, the youngest child was four years old.
When the matter was called up in the Berbice High Court, Benjamin declined to have a probation report on himself and asked the court to do what it thinks is just.
In handing down the sentence, Justice Reynolds used the United Nations life expectancy for Guyanese males, which is 63 years nine months and said he is expected to live for another 19 years.
Using several factors, that is, three years representing the time he had already spent in prison and two years for not wasting the courts’ time, the sentence was reduced to 14 years. However, the Judge added a further five years for the aggravating way in which the crime was committed.
A post-mortem report on the dead woman’s body had indicated that there were six incise wounds.
The trial Judge, before handing down the sentence, told Benjamin that he had deprived his young son of the nurture of his mother. (Andrew Carmichael)