Appeal Court affirms 10-year sentence

Allan Jones, a 27-year-old man who robbed two sisters and indecently assaulted them, lost his appeal yesterday and had his ten-year sentence with hard labour affirmed. The Court of Appeal comprising Justices Roger Hamel-Smith (president), Stanley John and Allan Mendonca, ordered that Jones’s sentence start as of yesterday and not from date of sentence, June 3, 2004. Attorney Leon Gokool, filed nine grounds of appeal on Jones’ behalf, but the court called on special prosecutor Devan Rampersad to respond to only three.

Gokool had complained that the magistrate at the preliminary inquiry did not facilitate Jones’ request to call witnesses and as a result the proceedings were null and void. To this, Rampersad directed the court to the records which he said showed that Jones had indicated he was going to give evidence and call a witness but later changed his mind and decided not to do so. In any event, Rampersad said, Jones did not suffer any prejudice because his main issue at the trial was alibi. He said he was not at the sisters’ home  at the time of the incident but at his home asleep in the same room with his younger sister.  Rampersad  noted that at the trial Jones’ sister did give such evidence, but also pointed out there was no other evidence before the Court of Appeal  to support that a witness named Rishi was available to give evidence at the Inquiry.

Another complaint was the trial judge did not direct the jury on how to treat inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence and therefore Jones  did not receive a fair trial. Rampersad pointed to a passage from the judge’s summing-up which he said was an unequivocal direction by the judge to the jury on how they should consider inconsistencies between the prosecution witnesses and to access their credibility. A third complaint was the judge telling  the  jury  they were entitled to consider the evidence of the witnesses and they could either accept or reject any part of the evidence they found was  mistaken and accept any part they find to be true. Gokool said that would confuse  the jury on the issue of mistaken identification and recognition.