Ex-cop to seek bail ahead of retrial for 2008 murder of teen girl
Published:Thursday | February 20, 2025 | 12:06 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
The ex-policeman who is to be retried for the 2008 murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl is scheduled to return to the Home Circuit Court for a bail application on March 20.
A bail hearing for Rushon Hamilton was fixed for Wednesday in the Home Circuit Court, but the matter failed to proceed and was postponed because of Justice Vinette Graham’s non-receipt of the bundle with the lawyers’ submission.
Hamilton, who was dapperly dressed in grey pants and a vest, was remanded. Attorney-at-law John Clark is representing the defendant.
Hamilton was found guilty in 2012 of the murder of Jhaneel Goulbourne and was sentenced to life in prison with a stipulation that he serve 35 years before being considered for parole. However, his sentence and conviction were overturned in September 2023 by the Court of Appeal, which ordered a retrial.
The allegations are that the teenager was abducted from her home in Harbour View, St Andrew, by armed men on October 24, 2008, and taken to sea on a boat. It is further alleged that Hamilton shot the young girl and threw her overboard. Her body was never recovered.
The schoolgirl went missing after she reported Hamilton to the police and he was charged with carnal abuse.
The child had told officers at the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse that Hamilton had carnally abused her in the barracks room of the Elletson Road Police Station.
Two of the ex-constable’s cellmates, as well as other prosecution witnesses, had testified that Hamilton had confessed to the murder.
One of the witnesses, Lennox Hinds, testified that Hamilton had confessed to him that he killed the young girl, after taking her out to sea where he shot her and threw her body overboard. The witness also testified that Hamilton had told him that he had been “99.9 per cent sure that her body could not be found”, when he was told that the girl’s body was found.
SEVERAL ERRORS
The appeals court, in quashing the conviction, said the trial judge made several errors in dealing with the evidence given against Hamilton by persons in custody.
Justice Frank Williams, who had written the decision, said then that, “the reason for the quashing of the conviction has been brought about by the learned trial judge’s unfortunate omission, in an otherwise fair and balanced summation, to direct the jury in keeping with the principles set out in Pringle and Benedetto.
“It is apparent that, in the trial, the need for caution first arose on the Crown’s case. In our view, that need was further accentuated with the testimony of Brooks, whose evidence supported the defence advanced by the applicant, of a plot arrived at in an attempt to ‘frame’ him.”
The Court of Appeal judges also said that summation did not show that any ‘special attention’ was given to the risks associated with cell confessions, and that the trial judge failed even to identify the things the witnesses testified were said by the applicant as “cell confessions”.
One of the inmates, Devon Brooks, testified at the trial, which was presided over by now-retired Justice Lloyd Hibbert, that he learnt of an alleged plot against Hamilton involving inmates Hinds and Bentley, both of whom were used by the prosecution.
The witness also testified that, while they were in custody with Hamilton, he confessed that, in 2008, he shot Goulbourne and dumped her body at sea.
However, Hamilton denied the allegation in his unsworn statement.
He further maintained his innocence during the appeal, claiming he had no reason to kill the teenager, that the prosecution witnesses were connected, and that the case against him was all a part of a conspiracy to frame him.