Criminal Evidence in Jamaican Murder Case

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Commonwealth - Constitutional - Criminal Evidence
(Jamaica)
Grant -v- The Queen - [2006] UKPC 2; 30 of 2005
PC
16 January 2006
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder saying that the
admission of an unsworn statement by one witness and the
non-admission of another similar statement who did not either
attend court was unconstitutional. He shot the victim 13 times
with hollow point bullets. He claimed self defence, and drove
straight to the police station to report the incident and
surrender himself. Though no gun was found on the body, it was
known that passers by had removed at least spent bullets. The
purpose of the section was to allow admission of statements which
would otherwise been inadmissible as hearsay, and subject to the
discretion of the judge, but it was said that this conflicted with
the constitutional right to cross examine witnesses. Held: The
appeal succeeded on the basis that the trial had been unfair. The
right to cross examine witnesses was important, but a departure
from that principal might be justified. The jurisprudence of the
European Court of Human Rights applied to Jamaica before it became
independent. The courts system in Jamaica provided other
protections also. It was clear that neither witness was thought
either unreliable or not relevant. The evidence of one witness
would have corroborated much of the defendant's statement. 'It
was, however, the responsibility of prosecuting counsel and the
trial judge to ensure that the proceedings were fair, and they
failed to do so. This failure was compounded by an inadequate
direction on Bryant's evidence. The jury were given no
encouragement to scrutinise it with particular care, and were not
alerted to apparent discrepancies between it and the evidence of
Constable Wynter (or, of course, the statement of Kinglock). '
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