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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.