Ann Marie Boodram v The State
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Steyn |
| Judgment Date | 10 April 2001 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1999] UKPC J0510-1 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 65 of 2000 |
| Date | 10 April 2001 |
Privy Council
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Steyn
Lord Cooke of Thorndon
Lord Clyde
Lord Hutton
Lord Millett
[Delivered by Lord Steyn]
I. The question
The principal question is whether a retrial of the appellant ("the defendant") on a charge of murder was unfair in circumstances where her counsel was unaware of the first trial until near the end of the retrial and, when he became aware of it, he did not try to obtain the transcript of the first trial in order to assess what could be done to redress any prejudice or potential prejudice to the defendant.
II. The background
On 20th January 1989 Alston Boodram, the husband of the appellant, died at Debe in the county of Victoria, Trinidad and Tobago. The deceased was aged 37 years, the defendant 34 years and they had three children Simon (aged 17 years), Sheldon (aged 11 years) and Marie (aged 6 years). The deceased died as a result of the ingestion of the herbicide Paraquat. On 3rd February 1989 the police arrested the defendant and charged her with murder. The case against her was that she had poisoned the deceased on about 12th January 1989 when she gave him curried chicken, potato and rice which later that day he ate at work. The police marshalled a formidable case against the defendant. On 15th March 1990 the defendant was committed to stand trial at the next sitting of the San Fernando Assizes. The defendant engaged the services of Mr Selwyn Mohammed and two juniors who appeared for her at the trial. Between 8th March 1994 and 15th April 1994 the defendant was tried before Koylass J and a jury. On 15th April 1994 the defendant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
III. A bird's eye view of the evidence at the first trial
Given the nature of the principal ground of appeal it is necessary to explain the thrust of the evidence and issues at the first trial as well as certain rulings of the judge. The prosecution tendered in evidence two written statements signed by the appellant. The first statement was taken on 1st February 1989 by Sergeant Tom. The defendant signed the statement at 5pm that day. It was not an outright confession but it did contain important admissions. The defendant said that she gave the deceased a packed lunch of chicken, potato and rice on 12th January 1989. Over the next few days he complained of pain. For some days he went to work returning after having had meals with his family with whom the defendant did not get on. She gave the remainder of the rice in her husband's lunch kit to a dog and a cat. On 19th January 1989 she discovered that the dog and cat had died. At about 4.30pm on 20th January 1989 her husband died. Given that her husband died of Paraquat poisoning, the jury would have been entitled to regard these statements as pointing towards guilt.
The defendant challenged the admissibility of the first statement. A voir dire was held. The defendant's case was as follows. The statement had in fact been written by Sergeant Tom. Although the defendant asked three or four times for Sergeant Tom to read the statement to her, he refused to do so. Sergeant Tom also refused to allow the defendant to read the statement before it was signed. She had asked, and was concerned, about her children whom she had not seen since she had been taken to the Homicide Office on 1st February 1989. Superintendent Philbert and Sergeant Tom told her that if she signed the statement she could go home in an hour's time. Finally she said that she had not been cautioned at any time before she signed the first statement. Koylass J ruled that the first statement was admissible.
The second statement records that it was taken between 3.30pm and 5.45pm on 2nd February 1989. It contained an unequivocal confession. The defendant said that her husband was a heavy drinker, beat her, and was unable to have sexual intercourse with her. She said that she became intimate with a policeman called Tony Montegue. The statement contains the following passage:
"Tony told me on several occasions that my husband better off dead, that it just got into my head. I got the impression that Tony was telling me to kill my husband and he would support me, so on Thursday 12th January, 1989 I got up around 6.00am and cooked curried chicken, potato and rice for my husband to carry for his lunch. After putting the rice, curry chicken and potato in my husband's lunch kit, I went downstairs and took a plastic bottle containing either weedicide or pesticide and emptied the bluish liquid from it on my husband's food. I covered my husband's lunch kit and put it in a brown paper bag. I then returned the empty bottle downstairs from where I had taken it below the house."
She said she gave the remainder of the lunch to the dog and the cat and they died after 3 days. She added that she told her son Simon to dispose of the empty bottles. The defendant confirmed this statement before Mr Ali Hosein, a justice of the peace, at 5.30pm on the same day when she identified "the bottle which contained the paraquat … which I placed on my husband's food".
The defence vigorously contested the admissibility of the second statement. A voir dire was held. Her account was to the following effect: By the time that she signed the statement, at about 5.00pm in the late afternoon of 2nd February 1989, she had not eaten or drunk anything, and had not been offered anything to eat or drink since the 1st February 1989. She was taken to a room at the Siparia CID on the evening of 1st February, where Inspector Douglas and Superintendent Philbert repeatedly told her that she killed her husband and Inspector Douglas slapped her hard several times on her head and her back. She asked Inspector Douglas to allow her to telephone her children and he refused to allow her so to do. She asked Inspector Douglas to telephone her family lawyer. He refused. Inspector Douglas returned to the room on his own later in the evening of 1st February 1989. He started to pass his hands through her hair. He told her that if she co-operated with him he would let her go. He kept on asking her to have sex with him. She refused and told him that she was pregnant. Thereafter, Inspector Douglas threw her to the ground and forced himself on her. He lay down on top of her. She was crying. He pushed her whole body down on the ground and he raped her. By the afternoon of 2nd February 1989 she was very frightened, nervous and hungry. She was bleeding from her vagina. Her feet were cold and her ankles were swollen and she was suffering from pain in her ankles and her belly and getting cramps in her feet. Sergeant Tom came into the room with blue sheets of paper with writing which she asked her to sign. Inspector Douglas pounded the table and told her to sign the document. Somebody slapped her on the back of her head. Eventually she did sign the papers. The first time she was aware of the contents of the statement was when it was read out at the Magistrate's Court.
Despite the fact that Superintendent Philbert, Mr Ali Hosein, Sergeant Tom and Constable Gordon had given evidence that the defendant made this statement voluntarily Koylass J ruled that the statement was inadmissible. The judge's contemporary note states as his reasons "Statement was involuntarily made". The note does not reveal whether the judge was influenced by all the defendants allegations or only by some. According to the note the judge came to an affirmative conclusion rather than deciding the matter on the basis that there was doubt about the voluntariness of the statement.
Superintendent Philbert gave evidence before the jury that on the 1st February 1989 together with WPC Gordon and Inspector Douglas he went to the defendant's home with a search warrant. He spoke to Simon Boodram, who took him to a pond at the back of the house where he pointed out something. The police officers recovered a cellophane bag. Superintendent Philbert opened the bag and found among other things a bottle. Subsequent analysis revealed the presence of Paraquat in the bottle. This is the bottle which the defendant is alleged to have identified when Mr Ali Hosein spoke to her and when she stated that it was the bottle from which she poured the poison into her husband's food. Being in the nature of real evidence this was a powerful plank of the prosecution case.
The Prosecution called Simon Boodram. In examination in chief he confirmed the police evidence about events at the defendant's home on 1st February 1989. Three days later under cross-examination, however, Simon retracted his first account and gave evidence to the following effect: Superintendent Philbert, Inspector Douglas and Devika Persad (the defendant's sister) instructed him as to the evidence that he should give against his mother. The police gave him a copy of a statement to sign and then instructed him to memorise it for the court proceedings. The police threatened to lock him up and charge him together with the defendant if he did not give evidence against her. Superintendent Philbert told him to say that he found two bottles containing poison. The defendant never told him to throw any bottles in the pond. No bottles were ever found in the pond. The police had taken an Angostura bitters bottle from the house. There was neither a dead dog nor a dead cat. The defendant told him that Inspector Douglas had 'brutalised' her.
The prosecution relied on two other witnesses. Devika Persad, the defendant's sister, gave evidence that the defendant confessed to her on 20th January 1989 that she had poisoned her husband. The defendant denied this evidence and testified to bad blood between her and her sister. Philoman Soobiah, the deceased's manager and friend, testified that on 20th January 1989 before...
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