A MAN who was sentenced to eight and a half years for robbery and shop-breaking, entering and larceny, will only serve seven and half years instead.
Guston Kean had appealed against his sentence on the grounds that the use of facts not led in evidence, as aggravating factors to enhance his sentence, was an error by the trial judge and that the trial judge should have ordered separate trials by severing the charges.
He informed the court the assessors were confused and that he was prejudiced in receiving a fair trial by the number of offences in the same information.
Justice Eric Basnayake, Justice Daniel Goundar and Justice Prabaharan Kumararatnam ruled Kean's appeal against sentence should be approved.
They said the use of these erroneous facts by the trial judge to enhance Kean's sentence justified some reduction to his sentence.
Therefore, his eight and half years was quashed and substituted with a seven and half years effective from February 7, 2008.
The court heard all the three charges were allegedly committed within a period of three months in Lautoka.
The three robberies, albeit involved three different victims, were home invasion robberies. Kean asked the court for a downward adjustment to the sentence for the time he spent in custody on remand before sentence.
The judges in their response said this principle was codified in section 24 the Sentencing and Penalties Decree. They agreed that the trial judge made no reference to the remand period when he sentenced the Kean to a total term of eight and a half years.