Racehorse trainer sentenced to 15 years for road rage shooting

Forty-seven-year-old businessman and race horse trainer Leroy Fearon was today sentenced to 18 years in prison on gun charges.

Fearon, who is from Cave Hill Estates in St Catherine, was convicted last month of gun offences resulting from a road rage incident.

He was sentenced to three years on the count of illegal possession of firearm and 15 years on the charge of shooting with intent.

The sentences are to run at the same time which means that Fearon will only serve 15 years.

In handing down sentencing, Supreme Court Judge Lloyd Hibbert commented that in the circumstances he did not want to give the businessman the 15-year prison term, but he had no choice because of the mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Fearon’s lawyers had raised concern about the minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years.

Some members of the legal fraternity have expressed that the section of the Firearm Act dealing with the minimum mandatory sentence should be repealed.

The lawyers feel that sentencing should be at a judge's discretion.

Evidence was given in the Gun Court that in May 2011 Fearon fired shots from his licensed firearm at a security guard who had hit his car at the intersection of Half Way Tree and Oxford roads.

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