LAWYER JAILED

In sentencing Melville, Justice Maria Wilson said she considered the employee/employers trust relationship and noted that the attorney was the mastermind and participated in the commission of the offences. Melville was before the court on charges of conspiring to murder his then secretary Patricia Cox on June 28, 2001. He was also charged with kidnapping and assault and found guilty of these charges as well. Melville was also sentenced to nine years for conspiracy to murder, 14 years for kidnapping and four years for assault. These sentences will run concurrently and because he has spent four years and nine months in prison, while awaiting trial, this will be deducted from the 19 year sentence.

So he will serve just over 14 years in prison.

Melville was represented by attorneys Ravi Rajcoomar, Larry Williams and Radeyah Ali. Senior State attorney Anju Bhola prosecuted.

It was Melville’s second trial. He was first convicted in March 2004 and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for his role in Cox’s kidnapping and attempted murder.

He successfully challenged this conviction in the appeal court and a retrial was ordered. Another man, Hilton Winchester was also convicted in 2004 and was jailed for ten years. Winchester lost his appeal. The State’s case was that Melville, Jason Holder, Ainsley “Beetle” Alleyne and Winchester, planned to kill Cox on June 28, 2001, after the attorney found out she had reported him to the police after he cashed in two insurance policies on behalf of a client and failed to pay the money to that client.

Melville hired the hitmen at a cost of $40,000 and told them it had to be a ‘skilful operation’ and Cox must not, “rise back up again.” This was part of the testimony of one of the three men whose evidence was read to the jury at the trial which took place in the Port of Spain Fourth Criminal Court.

During her testimony, Cox said the men took her up to Fort George and then up to Cumberland hill and one of them said he was paid $1,000 to kill her. She offered to pay him $20,000 to spare her life.

Realising she was going to be killed, Cox flung herself off the steep hillside and down a precipice.

She was eventually held and bought back partially up the hill where Holder squeezed her neck until she became unconscious.

When she revived, Cox begged her kidnappers to spare her life and eventually managed to escape by jumping off precipice a second time