A man who called 911 threatening to hurt his partner with a machete was sentenced on Friday to a one-year prison term, which was suspended partly because the woman insisted she did not believe he intended to carry out his threat.
Mark Kennedy Bush, 51, called a 911 operator on 10 Sept. last year, saying he planned to injure the woman, who is the mother of his children, with a machete, at their home in West Bay.
The 911 operator alerted a police inspector, a Grand Court jury had heard, and police had expected to arrive at the address to find a bloody scene. Bush was arrested and in February was found guilty by the jury of making threats to cause serious harm.
Justice Dale Palmer on Friday delivered his sentencing judgment, telling Bush, who has been in custody for six months, that it was up to him whether or not the one-year prison term – suspended for two years – was activated. He described the sentence as a ‘sword of Damocles’ hanging over Bush’s head.
The woman declined to participate in the trial or supply a victim impact statement afterwards, but the jury had heard from the 911 operator who said he could hear her crying in the background during the call, and believed the threats were credible.
Defence counsel had shared with the judge email correspondence with the woman, who said she did not believe the threats were real, had not been traumatised by them, and was eager to reunite with Bush.
Carter, outlining his sentencing reasons, said, “I accept it was her genuine feeling that she felt he would not carry out his threats”, adding that she had continued to live with him following the incident while he was on bail. He also noted that she had asked for the court’s mercy, not to imprison him, so they could recommence their relationship.
“She is not seeking to get rid of him, but wants him to get help,” he said.
Pointing out that the “aggressive and vulgar” threat, which was sexual in nature, was “as chilling and extreme as you can imagine”, the judge said the 911 operator had taken it seriously, and that police had “expected to find a bloody domestic killing”. He said that police, when arriving at the scene, had been bracing for an armed confrontation.
Bush had claimed that he had made the call to 911 after an argument with the woman, during which she had hit him.
Carter said the 911 call was clearly calculated to intimate the woman or the 911 operator. He added that he accepted that Bush may have been provoked, as the defendant had claimed he had been struck in the face by the woman immediately before making the call.
He noted that Bush had 26 previous convictions, most involving minor offences, though some did involve violence.
While the judge pointed out that the seriousness of such an offence would typically result in an immediate custodial sentence “of years, not months”, the “somewhat peculiar” circumstances in this case meant he was willing to impose a suspended sentence.
As a condition of his sentence, Bush will be under the supervision of the Probation Department and must undergo anger-management counselling. The judge said any “threatening, harassing or abusing” of his partner would result in immediate activation of his sentence.
