Ajodha et Al v The State
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Keith,Lord Simon,Lord Bridge,Sir William Douglas |
| Judgment Date | 01 April 1981 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Privy Council Appeal No. 24 of 1980 |
| Date | 01 April 1981 |
Court of Appeal
Lord Keith; Lord Simon; Lord Bridge; Sir William Douglas
Privy Council Appeal No. 24 of 1980
Criminal law - Appeal against conviction for murder and sentence of death — Whether statement of confession properly admitted into evidence — Court held that an accused was entitled to raise on the voir dire both the question of fact whether or not he had made the statement — Once it became apparent that the accused person is in truth raising the latter issue, it becomes a matter of fact for the jury to determine.
These four appellants were each tried and convicted of murder. Ajodha, Chandree and Fletcher were sentenced to death. Noreiga, being under 18 years of age at the date of the offence, was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's (now the State's) pleasure. Ajodha was tried before McMillan J. at the San Fernando Assizes in January 1975. Chandree, Fletcher and Noreiga were jointly tried before Braithwaite, J. at the Port-of- Spain Assizes in May and June 1976. There was no connection between the two trials save that the same point of law arose in both and affected each of the four appellants. All four appealed against their convictions to the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago. The appeals of Chandree, Fletcher and Noreiga were dismissed on 15th July 1977, that of Ajodha on 18th July 1977. Special leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was granted to Ajodha, Chandree and Fletcher on 27th March 1980 and to Noreiga on 27th November 1980. By consent of the parties their Lordships heard the appeals together on 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th March and announced at the conclusion of the arguments their decision that in each case the appeal would be allowed, the conviction quashed and a verdict of acquittal entered for reasons to be given later. This judgment sets out the reasons for their Lordships' decision.
The appellant Ajodha was tried jointly with one Tahaloo on an indictment charging both with counts of murder, robbery and rape. The case for the prosecution was that a man named Gosine, the murder victim, and his girl friend, Angela Dowlath, were, on 9th January 1973, sitting in a parked van when they were set upon by two masked men, both armed. Gosine ran away, pursued by one of the masked men, who caught up with him and inflicted on him injuries from which he died. Meanwhile the other masked man robbed and raped Angela Dowlath. Before he had completed the act of intercourse, Cosine's assailant rejoined him and they left together.
The only evidence relied on by the prosecution connecting Ajodha and Tahaloo with these crimes were signed confession statements which it was alleged that each had made to police officers investigating the matter.
The purported statement of Ajodha is a document signed by him in four places. The first two signatures are appended to acknowledgments in two different forms, at the beginning of the document, that he had. been duly cautioned; then follows the substance of the statement signed at the foot and finally the familiar caption:
“I have read the above statement and I have been told that I can correct, alter or add anything I wish. This statement is true. I have made it of my own free will.”
followed by a further signature. The prosecution alleged that the caption was in Ajodha's handwriting. This was disputed by the defence but the signatures were accepted as being the appellant's. The case for the appellant as presented both in cross-examination and in his own evidence was that he was in no way responsible for the contents of the statement, that it had been previously prepared by the police, that he had had no opportunity to read it, but that he had been forced to sign it by being beaten by the police and threatened with further beatings if he did not do so.
In the event Ajodha was convicted of murder and acquitted of robbery and rape; Tahaloo was acquitted of murder and convicted of robbery and rape.
The case for the prosecution against Chandree, Fletcher and Noreiga was that they were three of four men who on 24th May 1974 robbed one Shah, a paymaster of the Ministry of Finance, of $24,000. Three of the robbers were armed with shot guns, Shah was escorted by two armed police officers, and in the course of the robbery one of the police officers, Corporal Britto, was shot dead by one of the robbers.
In this case there was some evidence of identification of each of the appellants as one of the robbers but the way in which this was reviewed by the learned judge in summing up strongly suggests that he was inviting the jury to treat the evidence as unreliable. Here again the corner-stone of the prosecution's case against each appellant was a written and signed confession statement; supplemented in Chandree's case by a prior oral confession to the like effect. The form of the written statement in each case was similar to that which has been described in the case of Ajodha in that each embodied two initial signatures acknowledging the caution, a signature to the substance of the statement and a signature to the concluding caption.
The case for the defence of all three appellants was conducted on the footing that they were not the authors of the confession statements they had signed and in Chandree's case that he had not made the oral confession attributed to him. The case for Chandree and Noreiga was that they had been forced by violence and threats of further violence to sign the statements in ignorance of their contents. The case for Fletcher was that he had been tricked into signing his statement, having been falsely led by police officers to believe, that it was a statement of the evidence he could give for the prosecution in connection with an incident in which he himself had been wounded and which was wholly unrelated to the incident in which Corporal Britto was killed. These defence allegations were made clear in cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses concerned. Chandree and Fletcher did not give evidence but made unsworn statements from the dock in support of what had been put by counsel on their behalf. Noreiga gave evidence on oath to the like effect.
The primary question for their Lordships' decision in these appeals can be stated in its simplest form as follows: when the prosecution proposes to tender in evidence a written statement of confession signed by the accused and the accused denies that he is the author of the statement but admits that the signature or signatures on the document are his and claims that they were obtained from him by threat or inducement, does this raise a question of law for decision by the judge as to the admissibility of the statement? This question has provoked the keenest judicial controversy in a number of Caribbean appellate courts and a great amount of erudition has been devoted to the lengthy judgments which have been written answering the main question in one way or the other and expressing different shades of opinion on a number of related questions. Their Lordships propose to refer to what seem to be the main cases in the development of the controversy and to cite from these so far as necessary to indicate in broad outline the rival contentions, but hope they will be acquitted of disrespect if they do not examine the authorities in great detail since it appears to them that neither the principles to be applied in this field nor the results of their application to any one of a number of commonly encountered situations, including that under immediate consideration, are seriously; in doubt. Their Lordships find some confirmation of this opinion in the circumstance that counsel for the respondent did not feel able to advance any argument in support of the view which commended itself to the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and
Tobago.
The first important decision is that of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago (Wooding, C.J., McShine and Eraser, M.A.) in Williams v Ramdeo and Ramdeo [1966] 10 W.I.R. 397. The nature of the issue and the court's decision sufficiently appear from the following passage from the judgment of the court delivered by Eraser J.A. at page 398:–
“In the course of his evidence Cpl. Williams tendered the written statement allegedly given by Harrilal. His counsel objected to its admission on the ground that it was not given voluntarily but was obtained by force and threats. Accordingly, the magistrate proceeded to hear evidence as regards the taking of the statement. It turned out, however, that Harrilal was alleging, not that he had given the statement under duress, but that he had been beaten into signing a piece of paper and that he had in fact given no statement at all. Immediately after hearing the evidence the magistrate rejected the statement and refused to allow it in. He then continued the trial at the end of which, as we have said, he acquitted Harrilal.
In view of the course we propose, we refrain from commenting on Harrilal's defence. We content ourselves with saying that the magistrate was wrong in refusing the admission of the statement into evidence and that he thereby rejected legal evidence substantially affecting the merits of the case. In our judgment, a clear distinction falls to be drawn between an objection that a statement made by a person charged with an offence was not made voluntarily and an allegation that he never made any statement at all. In the case of an objection that a statement was not made voluntarily, a judge sitting with a jury or a magistrate sitting without one must hear the relevant evidence and on it decide whether or not to admit the statement: if admitted, it will then have to be weighed along with the rest of the evidence in order to find whether the person charged is guilty or not. In the case of an allegation by the person charged that he made no statement at all,...
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