A Trinida­di­an ac­tor’s dream to study at Lon­don’s pres­ti­gious Roy­al Acad­e­my of Dra­mat­ic Art (RA­DA) has end­ed af­ter he was sen­tenced to 18 months in prison for stran­gling his girl­friend.

Re­nal­do “Red” Fred­er­ick, 31, once a ris­ing star in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s film and the­atre in­dus­try, was con­vict­ed on Feb­ru­ary 10 at South­wark Crown Court of in­ten­tion­al stran­gu­la­tion and crim­i­nal dam­age to the vic­tim’s phone.

Fred­er­ick, who moved to the UK af­ter be­ing one of on­ly 16 stu­dents world­wide ac­cept­ed in­to RA­DA’s Mas­ter of Arts The­atre Lab pro­gramme, asked the vic­tim: “Do you want to die a lit­tle bit?” be­fore ap­ply­ing what she de­scribed as “ten out of ten” pres­sure to her neck, cut­ting off her breath­ing.

Judge Justin Cole, ac­cord­ing to free­lance court jour­nal­ist Tony Palmer, in hand­ing down the cus­to­di­al sen­tence, said: “You put her in a tight head­lock, and she de­scribed be­ing com­plete­ly un­able to breathe. You loos­ened your grip but kept her in a head­lock for an hour. When she tried to free her­self, you tight­ened your grip.”

The in­ci­dent oc­curred on June 1, 2023, at the woman’s West­min­ster home. A month lat­er, on Ju­ly 15, Fred­er­ick smashed her mo­bile phone.

“You told her if she con­tin­ued to strug­gle, you would put her to sleep,” the judge added. “The next morn­ing, you told her she had on­ly stopped breath­ing for four sec­onds and next time it would be five sec­onds. This was high­ly dan­ger­ous and an act of con­trol.”

Fred­er­ick, who was re­sid­ing at his spon­sor’s home in Sit­ting­bourne, Kent, de­nied the charges and claimed it was a prank that went too far. His lawyer, Bar­ry Ko­gan, ar­gued for a sus­pend­ed sen­tence, cit­ing Fred­er­ick’s re­morse and lack of work op­por­tu­ni­ties while on bail.

How­ev­er, Judge Cole dis­agreed, not­ing Fred­er­ick’s “con­tin­ued de­nial” of the of­fence and the dan­ger­ous na­ture of the act. Fred­er­ick, who has a pri­or con­vic­tion for as­sault­ing a night­club se­cu­ri­ty guard in April 2023, will be de­port­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go up­on com­plet­ing his sen­tence as his visa has ex­pired.

In a 2014 Trinidad Guardian fea­ture, Fred­er­ick spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about his break­through role as Gold­teeth, a de­fi­ant pan­man, in the docu-dra­ma Pan! Our Mu­sic Odyssey.

At the time, the then-21-year-old al­so starred as David, a rook­ie po­lice of­fi­cer in Fly­ing the Coup, which won the Peo­ple’s Choice Award for Best Short Film at the 2014 Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val.

Fred­er­ick’s ac­cep­tance to RA­DA had been a mo­ment of pride, with the ac­tor host­ing a fundrais­ing event called “in­cRED­i­ble” to cov­er tu­ition costs.

Ef­forts to reach Fred­er­ick's at­tor­ney Bar­ry Ko­gan for fur­ther com­ment proved fu­tile.