2 killers lose in Privy Council

TWO CONVICTED killers lost their appeals yesterday before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but they will not hang. Because the convictions were in 1997, Kelvin Dial and Andrew Dottin will escape the hangman based on the Privy Council’s 1993 decision of Pratt and Morgan. by a 4-1 majority, the Privy Council dismissed the appeal brought by the two men, saying although a State witness retracted his evidence relating to a .44 revolver, the evidence in the case was enough to render the convictions safe.

Lords Bingham, Hutton, Carswell, and Brown dismissed the appeal, while Lord Steyn dissented. Dial and Dottin were sentenced to death by Justice Herbert Volney in the Port-of-Spain Criminal Court on January 21, 1997 for the murder of Junior Baptiste who had been shot several times on February 20, 1995. The shooting took place in the presence of Junior’s elder brother Shawn Baptiste and Shawn’s girlfriend Alicia Henry at Shawn’s apartment in Laventille. Shawn was the main witness for the prosecution. He identified both Dial and Dottin as associates of his deceased brother.

Both Dial and Dottin denied any involvement in the killing, each gave evidence of having spent the night at home with their girlfriends. Apart from the alibi defence, Dial and Dottin questioned the likelihood of their having committed such an offence unmasked in the presence of a witness who could identify them and who was then left alive. No motive has ever been suggested by the prosecution for this killing. Not only was Junior Baptiste shot seven times, but Alicia Henry suffered three entry wounds to her leg and hip. At the end of the shooting, Shawn ran out of the apartment followed by Dial and Dottin.

In searching Shawn’s apartment,  PC Seepersad found a silver and black .44 revolver under a sheet on a mattress near to where Junior had been shot. Three days later, Henry made a statement to the police which included the description of the killers. Dial and Dottin appealed to the Court of Appeal comprising Justices Zainool Hosein, Jean Permanand, and Lionel Jones. The appeal was dismissed. Dial and Dottin petitioned the Privy Council which dismissed them on April 28, 1999. after this, Baptiste and Henry swore to affidavits retracting the evidence they had given at the trial. On October 26, 1999, a further petition was sent to the Privy Council, but this was withdrawn one month later.

An application was made to the then President Arthur NR Robinson under section 64 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act seeking a reference to the Court of Appeal for consideration of the fresh evidence. Baptiste and Henry gave evidence before the Court of Appeal comprising the then Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide, Roger Hamel-Smith, and Lionel Jones, but this was dismissed and Dial and Dottin returned to the Privy Council in 2003. Lord Brown, who delivered the majority decision, said the jury would have been very concerned had they learned that Baptiste  lied about the .44 revolver. So too, one must suppose, was the Court of Appeal, he added.

“But it was then necessary for the court, as it would have been for the jury, to look logically at all the evidence in the case to decide whether after all, that lie was so central to Shawn’s identification of the appellants as to throw real doubt upon it.” Lord Brown said. He said despite Baptiste’s lie about the gun, his identification remained intact, rending the convictions safe.