THE EDITOR, Sir:
ON NOVEMBER 6, 2002, the Privy Council delivered judgment in the cases of Mark Sangster and Randal Dixon. This case highlights a concern which has always troubled defence lawyers and fair-minded persons alike.
The concern finds accuracy in the often repeated quote that "There is a ghost which haunts the administration of justice it is the chance if the innocent found guilty."
The case was one of capital murder in which a jury convicted Sangster and Dixon of murder and they were duly sentenced to be hanged.
The case concerned the brutal murder of a police officer and the shooting of another who survived as four men robbed a Western Union bank in Spanish Town in 1994 whilst making their escape. The perpetrators were caught on camera in the bank. Two men were arrested. The case proceeded without the photographs. The defence did not and could not know of their existence.
The bank's employee at trial said the two men in court were not the men who came in the bank. On the identification parade held before the trial she said, "I don't see them". This bank employee on the day of the robbery told the police in her statement that, "I am sure they are caught on camera." The prosecution therefore relied solely on the purported identification made by the policemen who were on the outside of the bank that Dixon and Sangster were among the men. The case was tried before a jury and they were convicted. They appealed to the Jamaican Court of Appeal who dismissed their appeals.
Alarmingly the first Court to see the photographs which were available the day following the murder in 1994 was the Privy Council in 2001! Lord Rodger in the course of his judgment said:
"In the course of the hearing their Lordships had the opportunity to see the video recording. It is in black and white and show what appear to be a series of still pictures of what are undoubtedly different scenes inside the bank during the robbery. While some of the pictures are somewhat blurred, others are remarkably clear. In particular, some of the pictures show the faces and clothing of men who were in the bank carrying out the robbery. It is common ground that none of the images shows either Sangster or Dixon. The best estimate of counsel was that the images showed 4 robbers. In these circumstances Mr. Guthrie QC, for Director of Public Prosecutions, very frankly conceded that, had they been available, the pictures on the video recording would have been material evidence at the appellants' trial."
The case calls into question many critical question. First, did the DPP know of the photographs? Did the investigators know of the photographs? Did the Minister of Justice who conducted the prosecution know of the pictures? Recall the bank employee gave a statement that the camera should have caught the men. Why did the trial proceed without the photographs?
Many persons wonder why some of us cannot support the death penalty but this case demonstrates that there are innocent men now awaiting death or who have been given double-figures years' imprisonment for non-capital murder.
This case should not suffer the fate the paper in which it is reported.
We must immediately investigate who kept the pictures out. How did this case pass our local courts? But for the Privy Council they would have been hanged high and the public left with a sigh of relief that we are less two murderers!
I am, etc.
BERT SAMUELS
Knight, Pickersgill, Dowding & Samuels
Kingston
