Twice lucky for 2 accused killers

TWO security guards must consider themselves extremely lucky to have walked out of the Hall of Justice last Monday, nine years and four months after they were charged with murder. First of all, they must thank the British Law Lords for quashing their convictions because of a misdirection of the trial judge on the felony/murder rule. Secondly, because of the delay by the State in the judicial process, Justice Melville Baird stayed their prosecution and ordered them to be freed. But the evidence against Robert Mohammed and Johnny Richardson was overwhelming. What were the facts? In the early hours of June 22, 1994, Keith Vidale was on duty as an armed security guard at the premises of his employers, Imjin Security Services Limited when he was stabbed to death and a number of firearms belonging to the company were taken. Mohammed and Richardson, both employees of the company, although not on duty that night, were arrested shortly after and were charged with murder.

According to the evidence, around 1.30 am on June 22, 1994, Mr Proctor, an off-duty policeman and Mr Hospedales, a security officer, saw two men in the street whose behavior attracted their suspicion. They stopped the men. The first identified as Richardson was found to be carrying a firearm. The second, Mohammed, was carrying a black bag with several firearms. The two men were taken by car to the CID office in Port-of-Spain. During the journey, the two men were asked how they had come into possession of the guns and Mohammed said they had got them from Imjin Security where they worked. On arrival at the CID office, Mohammed pulled out a gun and fired twice at a police officer called Ramirez, whom he wounded. Mohammed then ran off and was chased by the police into a nearby building and on to an adjoining roof from which he jumped down into the street where he was held by police officers. Mohammed was found to be carrying a firearm. He was taken back to the CID office. There, the black bag was searched and found to contain nine revolvers, a quantity of ammunition, some locks and other items. All the firearms were identified as the property of Imjin Security. Also in the bag were a hammer and chisel, a serrated knife with a broken handle, an ice pick and some surgical gloves.

At 7.15 am, when Richardson was in custody, he told a police officer that he had just gone to use the toilet and Mohammed had stabbed the man. He then made a statement under caution which he signed and which was later verified by a Justice of the Peace. In this statement, he described meeting Mohammed on June 21, going to cinema with him and attempting to visit a club which was closed. At about 9.50 am, Mohammed told a police officer that it was Richardson who killed Vidale. He dictated a statement which he signed. Later that day, Mohammed was observed by a police officer to be suffering from injuries. He was sent to the hospital and examined. He was suffering from soft tissue injuries to his right shoulder, chest and mouth and a small laceration to his head. A post-mortem examination performed on Vidale revealed that he received four stab wounds to the front of the chest, penetrating the heart and lung, and six circular wounds of the chest and abdomen. At the trial, Mohammed’s defence was one of alibi. He denied that he was the man who had been stopped at 1.30 am on Abercromby Street and who had subsequently made an unsuccessful attempt to escape after shooting at Ramirez.

He said he had been at home asleep until he was awakened by police officers around 3 am. He was taken to the police station and asked to make a witness statement. Having refused, he said he was beaten, threatened and forced into signing a statement. The statement, he added, was untrue because he had nothing to do with the raid on Imjin. Richardson also contended at the trial that he had been beaten, threatened and forced into signing a statement. He insisted that he had never named Mohammed as the killer and that the killer was a former employee of Imjin Security named Junior Steele, known to him as Robert. The trial took place before the decision of the Privy Council in Moses v the State (1997) AC 53 and the felony/murder rule was understandably assumed by the trial judge and counsel to be part of the law of Trinidad and Tobago. The TT Court of Appeal held, inevitably in light of Moses v the State, that there was a misdirection. The court however pointed out that such a misdirection did not necessarily invalidate a conviction. The court considered the evidence to decide whether, if the jury had been properly directed on the issue of intent, they would have returned the same verdict. The court held that they would.

The Privy Council said four questions had to be answered:
(1) Is this defendant shown to have been party to a joint enterprise to rob or steal from Imjin Security?
(2) Has this defendant shown himself to have inflicted the fatal wound with the intent to kill the deceased or at least cause him very serious harm?
(3) If this defendant is now shown himself to have inflicted the fatal wound, is he shown to have foreseen as a real possibility that, in the course of the joint enterprise to rob, the other defendant (or another robber) might fatally wound the deceased?
(4) Is this defendant shown to have known that a lethal weapon was being carried by another defendant or robber?
According to Lord Bingham, who delivered the judgment of the Privy Council, even accepting that the jury answered the first question adversely to each defendant, they could not have considered or answered the other three because they were not invited to do so and the felony/murder rule obviated the need for them to do so. He said the trial judge did not direct the jury to consider the case of each defendant separately.