Late probation report delays sentencing

The sentencing of a man who admitted to murdering Steve Reynolds Mingo on February 21, 2009 was pushed back to later this month after Justice Keith Thom only received the Social Inquiry report yesterday.
The judge was not in a position to peruse the document that would guide his decision in sentencing Trevor Boston, who changed his plea to guilty after the trial had commenced.
Boston was charged with two other young men — Jamary Christian and Antonio Smith — for the shooting death at Mingo’s Gray’s Hill home.
However, Smith pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter while Christian admitted he conspired to rob the deceased.
The men will collectively be sentenced on April 28. Boston was further remanded and bail was extended to the other accused.
Nine witnesses — including the deceased man’s neighbour, sisters, one of Boston’s friends who was taken into custody after the shooting death — had already given evidence when Boston had a change of heart and reconsidered the not guilty plea he earlier made.
The witnesses testified that in the early hours of the day of the crime, Smith and Boston were seen jumping Mingo’s galvanised fence before three successive shots rang out, and the men were “scattering” out of the yard, with Mingo running out the house.
Smith had testified that Christian, who was only 15 years old when the crime was committed, was at his house when Boston told them that he knew of a house they could rob for money.
The accused said upon approaching the house, Christian told them he could not go any further because he was already accused of robbing the deceased, so Smith and Boston proceeded to rob the man who Boston admitted to shooting.