John v. The State (Trinidad & Tobago)

John v. The State of Trinidad & Tobago (Trinidad & Tobago) [2009] UKPC 12 (16 March 2009)

Privy Council Appeal No 66 of 2007

Ronald John Appellant

v.

The State of Trinidad and Tobago Respondent

FROM

THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

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JUDGMENT OF THE LORDS OF THE JUDICIAL

COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL

Delivered the 16^th March 2009

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Present at the hearing:-

Lord Hoffmann

Lord Rodger of Earlsferry

Baroness Hale of Richmond

Lord Brown of Eaton-Under-Heywood

Sir Jonathan Parker

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[Majority Judgment Delivered by Lord Brown of Eaton-Under-Heywood]

In the early afternoon of Wednesday, 27 November 2002, in the course of a robbery at the Starlite Recreation Club in Palmyra Village, San Fernando, the club's proprietor, Kenneth Boxie, was shot dead. On 8 February 2006, following a three-week trial before Mohammed J and a jury at the San Fernando Assizes, the appellant, Ronald John, was convicted of Boxie's capital murder and, as required by the law of Trinidad and Tobago, sentenced to death. On 28 March 2007, his appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal (Hamel-Smith, Warner and Kangaloo JJA). This further appeal is brought pursuant to special leave granted by the Board on 6 December 2007.

The only evidence against the appellant was that given by an accomplice, Jeffrey Lewis, a taxi driver, whose basic account to the jury was that on the occasion of the killing he had driven the appellant and two other (unidentified) men to various locations in the south including the Starlite Club, having understood that the men were just going "to mark a scene" (carry out a reconnaissance), that at the Club the appellant got out of the car with a gun in his hand, that he himself remained in the car under threat during the course of the robbery, that he had then driven the men back to Sea Lots where he had first picked them up, and that he had been in a position to describe the appellant to the police (sufficiently to enable the police to arrest the appellant on 6 December 2002) because for some months previously, once or twice a week whilst on his taxi run, he had used to see the appellant liming (hanging around) on Queen and Nelson Streets, Port of Spain, on one occasion for two or three hours, and so was able to recognise him although he did not know him personally. He had also, of course, seen the appellant on the drive south to the Club on 27 November when, he told the jury, the appellant had hired him and had been the front seat passenger affording him ample opportunity for observation; he said…

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