‘Mad’ killers want freedom

EIGHT convicted killers who have been detained at St Ann’s Hospital — one as long as 36 years — are seeking an order of the High Court to be released forthwith. They are also asking that they be paid damages for suffering and loss of amenity for what they consider to be an illegal detention by the State. The applicants, who filed constitutional motions against the Attorney General, are now awaiting a date for the hearing of their cases. The motions were filed in the Port-of-Spain High Court by attorney Mark Seepersad. The applicants are Christopher Ventour, Winston Solomon, Junior Collins, Wayne Alleyne, Simon Habib, Roger Sobers, Lennard Sylvester, and Miguel Francois.

The applicants are seeking a declaration that the order of detention imposed on them was unconstitutional, illegal, and void. They want an order setting aside the order imposed on them. They also want a declaration that Section 69 of the Criminal Procedure Act (now Section 67) is unconstitutional and not in conformity with the constitution as it is inconsistent with the doctrine of the separation of powers. If their argument on a release fails, the applicants want a declaration that they are entitled to a review of their cases and detention at yearly intervals or as soon as possible as is deemed advisable by the head of the Forensic Unit at St Ann’s Hospital.

Christopher Ventour, 69, has been detained at St Ann’s for the past 36 years. He was convicted in 1968 before Trinidad’s first female judge, Justice Elizabeth Bourne. His lawyer was Dr Aeneas Wills. Ventour recalled growing up with his family in La Brea. He said that he started suffering from a mental disorder in the 1960s. “A symptom of this disorder was that I would hear voices and suffer from attacks of rage. These voices would inform me that someone was trying to kill me with a knife,” Ventour said in his affidavit. He continued, “I would become very fearful for my safety with the result that I would panic and, on occasion, fly into a rage and attack those around me. I sought help from the police and requested that I be taken to a hospital for treatment. I was ridiculed and turned away.

“My mental illness became more acute as time passed and one day in 1968, I suffered a particularly serious bout of illness and after hearing voices and experiencing an attack of rage, I attacked another person fatally wounding him. I remained at the scene. Soon after, the police arrived and I was arrested,” Ventour added. Winston Solomon, 39, was sentenced to death on February 7, 1996 for the murder of his wife at East Dry River. He lost his appeal in Trinidad, but the Privy Council remitted his case to the TT Court of Appeal after reviewing new medical evidence. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and ordered a re-trial.

Solomon was found guilty of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility the second time around and ordered to be detained at St Ann’s. Junior Collins, 39, was found guilty in 1994 and ordered to be detained at St Ann’s after he was found guilty but insane. “At the time I had a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that the jury had found me to be insane. I felt aggrieved by the jury’s verdict and I was fearful of the possibility that I would remain incarcerated for the rest of my life as I had been a long time sufferer of epilepsy.” Wayne Alleyne, 47, was convicted of murder in 1997, but a year later the Court of Appeal recorded a guilty but insane verdict against him.

Simon Habib, 45, was found guilty but insane in 1990. On February 7, 1987, while vending coconuts, Habib said a man stole a coconut and he retaliated by chopping him with his cutlass. “The cutlass landed on his head and he succumbed to the injury,” Habib stated in his affidavit. Roger Sobers, 39, was a mortician at the University of the West Indies. “While working there, I was subjected to harassment and abuse by a female co-worker. She had spread rumours that I was afflicted with various diseases and that I was unstable and insane. This constant torment began to take an effect on me. It continued for many months and became unbearable to the point that I made reports at the police station.”

Sobers attacked the co-worker on October 16, 1990 and inflicted a single stab wound. Lennard Sylvester was found guilty but insane for killing his common-law wife. Miguel Francois, 27, was convicted and sentenced to death by Justice Herbert Volney in 1997 and sent to death row. He lost his appeal in Trinidad, but the Privy Council remitted his case on the ground of his mental state. The Court of Appeal quashed Francois’ conviction and substituted a finding of guilty of manslaughter based on diminished responsibility. Since then, he has been kept at St Ann’s Hospital. Francois had an argument with a female friend during which he pulled a cutlass and chopped her on the neck.