A white American tourist, who had a loaded gun in his luggage, has been sentenced to three days in prison by the Court of Appeal.
The country’s highest local court quashed the 12 month-long sentence given to Ronald Moorhead on June 21 and gave him three days instead.
Moorhead, 53, has already served the sentence, since he spent three days in prison before getting bail.
He was arrested on June 21 after officials at Leonard Thompson Airport in Abaco found a loaded pistol in his checked luggage.
Moorhead, who has a license for the weapon, accidentally brought the gun on his family vacation.
The prison’s inability to handle Moorhead’s ill health is the reason he got the unusually light sentence.
He has a bad case of type 1 diabetes that Acting Corrections Commissioner Doan Cleare says the facility is unable to manage.
The panel of Sir Brian Moree, Jon Isaacs and Stella Crane-Scott said, “We hasten to caution that this decision turns on its own peculiar facts and circumstances and it should be viewed in that narrow context.
“It is an extremely rare case where the institution which is responsible for the incarceration of convicted persons informs the Court that it lacks the capacity to properly manage and attend to the medical requirements of a specific person if he is given a custodial sentence. That is a weighty and compelling factor which must be considered when sentencing the person together with all the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offense and the antecedents of the person.
“The outcome in this case does not mean that offenders generally will be meted out with the same or similar punishment in the future.”
