Appeal denied
Court upholds 18-year sentence for man who chopped two sisters and left them for dead
TIMOTHY Tulloch, the St Catherine Man who in July 2021 was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for a “premeditated” machete attack which left two children with serious and likely permanent injuries, has failed to convince the Appeal Court that his sentence was excessive.
Tulloch — who had been charged with wounding with intent and buggery — pleaded guilty to two counts of wounding with intent before the St Catherine Parish Court and not guilty to buggery after an Advance Sentence Indication (ASI) by a judge in chambers.
The buggery charge was dropped by the prosecution which offered no evidence on that count.
The ASI was 10 years’ imprisonment on each count to be served concurrently, qualified by the condition — if “everything was good” in the social enquiry and antecedent reports, which had not yet been obtained.
However, in July 2021, in contravention of the ASI, the judge sentenced Tulloch to nine years imprisonment on each count to run consecutively — making it a total of 18 years that he should serve in prison.
The judge, in the earlier stages of the sentencing exercise, had indicated that the extent of injuries inflicted on the complainants constrained him to consider substituting the concurrent 10-year terms of imprisonment previously indicated, with consecutive sentences.
In an appeal filed that same month, lawyers representing Tulloch contended that the consecutive sentences imposed resulted in the punishment being “manifestly excessive”.
According to the prosecution, in January of 2020, Tulloch, who was in a relationship with the elder of the two children, told the younger one to come to the side of the house that he occupied.
She did not go and instead waited until her sister returned from school at which point she wrote a note to Tulloch telling him, “that if he do it again she is going to tell her parents, and the police, and he is going to see it on the news, and she is serious” .
The child then took the letter to Tulloch and left.
That night after they retired to bed Tulloch, armed with a machete, attacked the two young girls, chopping one in her face while choking her with his left hand.
He then turned his fury on the other child who had sent him the note, chopping off three of her fingers when she attempted to block the weapon. He kept chopping her until she lost consciousness before leaving the house.
The injured sisters were discovered by their parents who had been away from the house at the time.
The medical report of the child who had challenged Tulloch in the note listed her injuries as: “two lacerations to palm of right hand and distal one-third of forearm. Laceration to left hand, four and five digits fracture…left forearm bone broken, fracture…right forearm bone broken, amputated right fifth finger, amputation left fourth and fifth digital finger”.
The medical report also indicated that she sustained injuries to her ears, nose and throat, and required intervention from a neurosurgeon. Plastic surgery and paediatric surgery were undertaken.
The medical report for the other child listed her injuries as: “multiple-lacerations to face, head, arms, multiple facial bone fractures, left mandible and left orbit”.
The judges of the appeal panel, in a judgment handed down Monday, said given the facts, as accepted by the trial judge, the children were chopped multiple times to the head, face and throat in a premeditated attack upon them after they had retired to bed.
“The indication is that the intention of the appellant was to cause more serious injuries than those which resulted.
“It follows from the nature and extent of the injuries inflicted upon the complainants that had the learned judge maintained concurrent terms of 10 years’ imprisonment, the appellant would have been inadequately punished in light of the normal range of sentences for similar offences,” the Appeal Court panel stated.
According to the panel, Tulloch was afforded many opportunities, between the plea of guilt and the sentencing, to reconsider his plea of guilt, based on the judge’s indication that he was contemplating consecutive instead of concurrent sentences.
According to the Appeal Court panel, the sole issue arising from Tulloch’s argument that the consecutive sentences imposed were manifestly excessive was what would be an appropriate sentence.
In considering the sentence the panel said, “Given that each complainant sustained extremely severe disfiguring and debilitating wounds” an appropriate starting point of 14 years’ imprisonment, rather than the usual starting point of five years’ imprisonment was appropriate to reflect “the intrinsic seriousness of the offence, including the fact that there were two victims”.
In adding 16 years for the aggravating factors of the case which included the fact that he had “left them for dead” when he closed the door and left, the judges from a total of 30 years deducted six years for the mitigating factors of the case taking it to 24 years.
A further 20 per cent deduction for his guilty plea and credit for the one year and five months he spent behind bars awaiting sentencing landed him at 18 years.
Said the judges of the Appeal Court, “The aggregate sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment would not be disproportionate for two counts of wounding with intent of two minor defenceless victims.
“We believe the aggregate of two nine-year terms of imprisonment, imposed by the learned judge, would not have been disproportionate or manifestly excessive. The consecutive element of the sentences does not make the sentences manifestly excessive. Accordingly, the single ground of appeal fails and the appeal must be dismissed.”
