Lesmond v The Queen
| Jurisdiction | St Lucia |
| Judge | Lewis, C.J. |
| Judgment Date | 26 April 1967 |
| Neutral Citation | LC 1967 CA 1 |
| Docket Number | Criminal Appeal No. 1 of 1966 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Saint Lucia) |
| Date | 26 April 1967 |
Court of Appeal
Lewis, C.J; Gordon, J.A.; Lewis, J.A.
Criminal Appeal No. 1 of 1966
K. Foster for the appellant
Browne for the Crown
Criminal law - Appeal against conviction — Judge gave adequate directions on the standard of proof — Appeal dismissed.
The appellant was convicted on the 19th October, 1966, of the offence of murder and sentenced to death. He now applies to this Court for leave to appeal against his conviction.
On the night of Friday 10th December, 1965 or in the early morning of 11th December, one Anthony Newton, a merchant of Dennery was brutally murdered. He was found dead in his shop in the morning lying in a pool of blood. He had received a number of blows on his head and other parts of his body. He had been strangled, and several marks of finger nails were on his face and throat. A large stone was found near to his body and on it blood was found.
Doctor Monrose who examined the body gave as the cause of death multiple blows received on the head and face with a blunt instrument, and suffocation: as a result of manual strangulation there was haemorrhage of the lungs.
The Prosecution's case against the appellant was based upon circumstantial evidence, coupled with certain admissions made by the appellant in conflicting statements which he made to the police.
The appellant lived with a woman by the name of Septima Alexander. She lived in Micoud and he sometimes slept at her home. Her evidence was that the evening of 10th December he had left her home at about 7 o'clock in the evening and he remained out nearly all night coming in in the early hours of the morning. She saw him when she woke up at 6 o'clock. Her mother Theresa Felicien also said that the appellant did not sleep in that night, that he had left the house before she locked up at eight o'clock in the evening, that he knocked between two and three o'clock in the morning and she let him in, and he told her that he had come from Patience. A torchlight and a rain coat which were identified by persons in the employ of the deceased as belonging to him were traced to the appellant. The deceased had used the rain coat on the Friday when he went on his weekly tour selling goods. The torchlight was found by Theresa Felicien in the appellant's room on the Saturday morning. He was seen by one Belfield Griffith about three o'clock in the morning with the rain coat and also with the torchlight. He had awakened Belfield Griffith and asked him to convey him by one of his trucks from Bosquet d'Or in the Dennery District to Micoud. At that time it was raining and he left the coat in the truck when he got out. Griffith found it later that day. There was also the evidence of Stephen George that he had seen the appellant outside Newton's shop around 1 a.m. on the 11th and that the appellant had then told him he was a policeman watching the shop.
The appellant when first questioned by the police said that he had slept all night in the home of his girl friend, which was obviously untrue. Later when he was faced with fact that the police had recovered the torch and the rain coat he made a second written statement. This was on the 13th December. In this statement he said that some three weeks previously himself and two other men, one Slim and one Nico, had agreed that they would go to Newton's shop to rob him. The plan was that he would go inside and distract the attention of Newton and they would then go in and hold Newton. He said that this plan had not come off on the day agreed because they had returned home too late from Choiseul. He said that in the afternoon of the 10th December he had met with Slim who had told him: “Our business will be nice tonight.” At midnight Nico had come to his home and called him out and told him that Newton, whom he called Ton, had arrived and they must go before the shop was closed; so they drove from Micoud to Dennery, left the car by the Mole bridge and walked down towards the shop, and they met their confederate standing near the Gas Station. Nico and Slim then each had a large stone in his hand. The agreement was that he was to go into-the shop and buy a coke and while Newton got it the others would enter and hide behind the fridge, and this plan was carried out. Newton went to get change and the two others entered the shop and hid behind the fridge. He (appellant) left the shop, Newton came to the door and closed it. So that according to this statement the two men armed with stones, and Newton were left together in the shop, in the early hours of the morning. Well, he went on in his statement to say that he heard a noise from the shop and he heard Newton saying: “Let me go, let me go, I will give you what you want”, and then the door was opened. The two men came out and he asked them what had happened. They said that Newton (referring to him by an insulting word) had already hidden the money. He and the others then took out a quantity of goods from the shop and carried them away.
He said that when Nico came out of the shop he had with him a cloak and a flashlight. Between 2.15 and 2.30 a.m. they found themselves outside of Belfield Griffith's house. It was raining. Nico lent him the torchlight and the coat, and he knocked up Belfield Griffith and arranged with him to convey him back to Micoud.
The appellant did not give evidence but he made a statement from the dock and he repeated substantially what he had said in his statement of 13th December about the events of the 10th — 11th December. He admitted being party to the robbery but said he knew nothing of the murder.
A number of grounds of appeal have been argued and Mr. Foster for the appellant has said all that could be said on his behalf. It is not really necessary to refer to each ground of appeal individually. A number of them contained little if any merit.
It was submitted that the learned trial judge ought to have directed the jury as to the law applicable to the offences of abetment of shop-breaking, robbery and assault with intent to rob and the distinction between these offences. The Court is quite satisfied that on the evidence which was before the jury and the facts as I have briefly related them, it was quite unnecessary for the learned judge to deal with these matters. Any attempt to deal with offences with which the appellant was not charged and in respect of which the jury could not return a verdict would merely have tended to confuse the jury.
The same applies to the complaint that the learned trial judge erred in not addressing the jury on the law applicable to the offence of accessory after the fact to murder. It was not the case for the Crown or for the appellant that he was an accessory after the fact, and that legal situation does not arise on the evidence.
Ground 2 was as follows: That the learned trial judge in error failed to define and/or interpret and/or properly to explain at all to the jury, the law on common design in relation to the facts of the case.
On this ground learned counsel submitted that since on the appellant's statements both out of Court and in Court he had said that there were two other persons involved in this robbery and attack upon Newton, the learned judge ought to...
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