Birthday killer gets 26 years in jail

AGGRESSIVE, intolerant, impulsive and irrational. That was how Jeffrey Barman behaved on the day he murdered his 20-year-old girlfriend, Melanie Booysen, by hitting her with a glass and cutting a major artery in her neck during a birthday party for their child almost three years ago, Judge Christie Liebenberg commented in the Windhoek High Court before he sentenced Barman to 26 years’ imprisonment yesterday.

“Clearly this was another senseless murder which should never have happened,” Judge Liebenberg remarked when he reflected on the events that took place at the house of Booysen’s parents in Windhoek on 10 November 2012, when the young couple and some of their relatives and friends had gathered to celebrate the fourth birthday of the daughter of Barman and Booysen.

A couple of hours after the start of the daytime party – by which time Barman had had a number of drinks and his mood appeared to have turned prickly and aggressive – a quarrel broke out between him and Booysen about the condition of meat that Barman was responsible for barbecuing.

Although Barman claimed that Booysen tried to hit him with a glass and that she was injured when he deflected her blow at him, the court found that Barman was the one who had a glass in his hands at that stage and that he struck Booysen on the neck with it, inflicting a fatal injury when the glass broke and her carotid artery was cut.

Having found that Barman (24) acted on the spur of the moment, with little time to rethink his actions, Judge Liebenberg convicted him of murder committed without a direct intention to kill.

Although there was no history of their relationship having been an abusive one, it was evident from Barman’s actions on that day that he showed no respect to Booysen and her family, Judge Liebenberg said during the sentencing yesterday. Barman’s aggressiveness towards Booysen was impulsive and absolutely irrational, the judge said.

He also stated: “It is to be expected that persons in intimate relationships may at times encounter disagreements and engage in squabbles, but society expects of these persons not to let their emotions get the better of them and lead to violence against one another. The accused on that day gave free rein to his intolerance and aggressiveness towards others, turned violent for no reason and launched a brutal attack on [Booysen], injuring her fatally.”

Although Barman was a first-time offender, the circumstances of his case warranted a lengthy term of imprisonment, Judge Liebenberg said. He further noted that the number of cases involving murder and violent crimes committed within domestic relationships showed no signs of decreasing, despite repeated warnings from the courts that sentences would become progressively heavier to stop such a wave of violence against women and children in Namibia.

While the court should take the prevalence of an offence like murder into account when it came to sentencing, Barman should not alone be made to pay the price for the increasing number of murders committed in a domestic setting in Namibia, the judge said.

He sentenced Barman to 25 years’ imprisonment on the murder charge, to a one-year prison term for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm – an offence which Barman committed when he struck a drinking friend on the head with a crutch on 9 August 2013, while he was free on bail on the murder charge – and to concurrent prison terms of three months and one month for assaults that Barman carried out when he punched a brother of Booysen and pushed her mother against a fence, causing her to fall to the ground, on the day of the murder.

Barman spent about two years in custody before his trial was concluded. Defence lawyer Willem Visser represented him during his trial. State advocate Simba Nduna prosecuted.

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