Jagdeo Singh heads for the Privy Council

JAILED attorney Jagdeo Singh was yesterday granted leave by the Privy Council to appeal his conviction and seven-year sentence on two counts of corruption. His main argument will be the failure of the trial judge to adequately address his good character before the jury at the High Court. The three Law Lords said that the grounds submitted to the Privy Council have merit, and that the appeal should be heard before a full Board comprising five judges in early 2004. The application for leave was heard before Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, and Lord Simon. Edward Fitzgerald QC, leading James Oury and instructed by Rajiv Persad, appeared for Singh who is incarcerated at the Maximum State Prison, Arouca. Peter Knox represented the State.

Singh was convicted and jailed by Justice Stanley John in the Port-of-Spain Assizes on November 20, 2001. He lost his appeal before Chief Justice Sat Sharma, Justice Roger Hamel-Smith, and Justice Lionel Jones on November 15, 2002.
Singh was convicted of  the following offences —
* Between October 1 and December 3, 1999, corruptly soliciting for himself the sum of $40,000 from Shirley Ann Basdeo as an inducement to Magistrate Deborah Thomas-Felix to grant bail to Rudolph John and as an inducement to Police Prosecutor Claudette Bynoe not to object to the granting of bail to John.
* On December 2, 1999, obtaining $40,000 from Basdeo and WPC Lystra Bridgelal as an inducement.
Fitzgerald argued several grounds. He submitted that the TT Court of Appeal erred in law when it decided to apply the proviso which led to the dismissal of the appeal.
He further argued that the Court of Appeal acted in denial of Singh’s human and constitutional rights by (a) making decisions as to fact and inference that were contrary to the totality of the evidential material before, and (b) doing so without inviting Singh, through his attorney, to address the court.
The British QC said all the grounds arose from the judge’s direction to the jury about Singh’s good character. He said that based on the judge’s summing up and the judgment of the Court of Appeal, several critical issues of fact had to be determined by the jury. One such issue was whether the prosecution had proven that Singh did ask Sherry Ann Basdeo for $40,000 in cash to be used to bribe the prosecutor and magistrate dealing with the case of Rudolph John. Secondly, he asked whether Singh received the sum of $40,000 from WPC Bridgelal on December 2, 1999 as a result of the request made by the lawyer. Fitzgerald argued that the judge’s direction to the jury on Singh’s character was the subject of his appeal against conviction in the TT Court of Appeal. He said the direction of the trial judge was erroneous in law and inadequate in fact. This, he added, amounted to a material misdirection.