Privy Council spares killer of 3 women

A 29-YEAR-OLD man who was sentenced to death for killing his former common-law wife, her mother, and sister five years ago, won his appeal in the Privy Council yesterday.

The British Law Lords allowed the appeal of Bimal Roy Paria, substituting the three death sentences with manslaughter. The Lords also ordered  the case to be remitted to the TT Court of Appeal to impose the appropriate sentence in respect of the convictions for man-slaughter. The Law Lords allowed the appeal on the ground that Paria’s good character was not put to the jury at the trial. The Privy Council comprised Lords Nic-holls, Hutton, Hobhouse, Scott and Rodger, who delivered the written judgment. English Queen’s Counsel Andrew Nicols appeared for Paria, while Peter Knox represented the State. Paria, who lived at Bangladesh Village, St Joseph, was charged with beating to death his former common-law wife Asha Arjoon, mother Sita, and sister Anna on July 24, 1998. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by Justice Ivor Archie in the Port-of-Spain Assizes on July 19, 2000.

His appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on January 30, 2001. Nicholls submitted that the trial judge misdirected the jury on the issue of provocation because he failed to tell them that they had to take into account Paria’s evidence that he was depressed due to his father’s illness. But the Law Lords rejected this submission and went to the second one - the direction as to good character. Before the Court of Appeal, Paria’s attorney submitted that there had been a miscarriage of justice due to the trial judge’s failure to give a direction as to his character. Lord Rodger said, “it is important to notice that the Court of Appeal characterised the major issue in the case as being whether, when he killed the three women, the appellant was out of control as a result of provocation to which he had been subjected. The relevance of the evidence of good character therefore was that it would suggest that the appellant was unlikely to have committed such barbaric acts unless he had lost his self-control.”

The Law Lords noted Paria’s own evidence that he was of good character and also the evidence of two witnesses that he was a “cool fella”. The Court of Appeal did not consider that Paria had suffered any prejudice as a result of the judge’s failure to give the jury a specific direction. Knox asked the Privy Council to apply the proviso notwithstanding the misdirection. He argued that Paria had carried out consecutive ferocious attacks on three women and the jury would have inevitably convicted the appellant of murder. Any misdirection, he added, was irrevelant. The Privy Council appreciated the force of the submission, but they did not agree with it. Lord Rodger said that ordinarily, the Board would have remitted the case to the TT Court of Appeal to decide whether to quash the convictions and order a new trial or to substitute verdicts of manslaughter. Knox informed the Board that if the appeal was allowed, the state would not seek a new trial. As a result, the Law Lords substituted the death sentences with verdicts of manslaughter.