The Director of Public Prosecutions will appeal what he regards as a “manifestly inadequate” non-custodial sentence handed to a young man who chopped three people in a Samurai sword attack.

As The Royal Gazette reported yesterday, Chase Burgess, 21, was at the centre of bloodshed in the affluent Fairylands neighbourhood when he and two accomplices attacked another group in a feud over a woman. Although Burgess faced at least three years behind bars for the sword attack according to Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons, she opted to hand him a suspended sentence rather than jail due to his youth and previous good character.

“It’s rare indeed that someone can come before this court on such serious offences and walk away without a custodial sentence, but I’ve erred before on the side of believing in the cause of a young person and I’m prepared to take my licks and do it again because I believe we are not likely to see you before the courts again,” she told him on Tuesday. However, Director of Public Prosecutions Juan Wolffe announced yesterday that he will ask the Court of Appeal to impose a harsher penalty than the 12-month term that he got, suspended for two years.

“An appeal has been filed in respect of the sentence of Chase Burgess, on the ground that the sentence was manifestly inadequate,” he said yesterday.

Mrs. Justice Simmons had heard from Senior Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney how Burgess, his 23-year-old brother Marcus Burgess and Kyle Tavares, 20, set upon five other men in the Point Shares/Fairylands area of Pembroke last June. Chase Burgess brandished a Samurai sword, chopping one victim on the forearm and causing two others to suffer lacerated fingers as they tried to defend themselves. His brother was handed a $500 fine for using a beer bottle as an offensive weapon during the attack, while Tavares will be sentenced at a later date.

Lawyer Mark Pettinghill, who defended the Burgess brothers, said of the appeal: “The Crown had asked for three years (jail) so I’m not particularly surprised. It’s for the Court of Appeal to look at and appreciate what circumstances were taken into account.”