Clarke and others v The State (Trinidad and Tobago)

Facts

On the evening of 26 November 2005 Samdaye Rampersad was kidnapped at gunpoint near her shop in Mendoza Lane, Petit Bourg, Trinidad and Tobago. On 5 January 2006 Nigel Roderique led police to her body, buried in a shallow grave in a cashew field at Claxton Bay; she had died of asphyxiation and suffocation secondary to live burial, a broken back being a contributory factor. Nine men, including the appellants Vivian Clarke, Pernell Martin and Steve McGillvery, stood trial for her murder at the Port of Spain Assizes before Narine J between 1 May and 31 July 2009. Roderique, himself deeply implicated and by then charged with the unrelated murder of Nigel Allen, was the principal prosecution witness. On 13 May 2009 Narine J ruled that counsel could elicit only the bare fact that Roderique had made a statement on 16 December 2005 which he later retracted, and not its contents — an account of his having been kidnapped by Allen which he had admitted was a fabrication. The appellants were convicted of manslaughter on a joint enterprise basis and sentenced to 30 years hard labour. The Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal on 28 July 2011, no point having been taken on the ruling. The Board granted permission to appeal on that ground alone.