Tobagonian on murder charge is island's first successful bail applicant

A HIGH COURT judge has granted the first bail application to a Tobagonian charged with murder.

On Tuesday, Justice Geoffrey Henderson granted bail to Hubert Guy, 59, of Falcon Drive, Sou Sou Lands, Tobago, in the sum of $1 million with surety.

As part of the conditions for bail, Guy has been ordered not to visit Jiggers Hill, Mason Hall, where the alleged murder of his nephew took place; and to have no contact with any of the State’s witnesses in the case.

Guy is before the court charged with the murder of his 18-year-old nephew, Jamal Sebro, on June 26, 2021.

It is alleged that Sebro was fatally chopped while going to his mother’s assistance during an altercation with a relative.

The preliminary inquiry into Sebro’s murder is yet to start and Guy’s attorney, Azim Walters, made the bail application which was assigned to Henderson two weeks ago, after it went before several masters of the High Court’s criminal division.

Walters argued that his client had no previous convictions or pending matters and there was an element of provocation in the prosecution’s case against his client.

In granting bail, Henderson took into account Guy’s good character and his age.

The State was represented by prosecutor Anju Bhola.

This was the third successful bail application and the first in Tobago.

Last month, a Diego Martin man was granted bail by Justice Carla Brown-Antoine, and in March, a Belmont man became the first person to get bail on a murder charge, granted by a master of the criminal division.

In February, the Court of Appeal paved the way for anyone charged with murder to apply for bail for the first time in over a century. The State’s appeal of that decision comes up for hearing in the Privy Council Wednesday and Thursday.