Daniel Dick Trimmingham v The Queen
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Carswell |
| Judgment Date | 22 June 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] UKPC 25 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Appeal No 67 of 2007 |
| Date | 22 June 2009 |
[2009] UKPC 25
Privy Council
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
Lord Carswell
Lord Mance
[Delivered by Lord Carswell]
The appellant Daniel Dick Trimmingham was on 23 November 2004 convicted after a trial before Blenham J and a jury in the High Court of St Vincent and the Grenadines of the murder of Albert Browne and on 8 December 2004 was sentenced to death by hanging. His appeal against conviction and sentence was on 13 October 2005 dismissed by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal (Alleyne CJ Ag, Gordon and Barrow JJA). On 12 December 2007 the appellant was granted special leave to appeal to the Privy Council against conviction and sentence, it being provided that reliance on the evidence relating to mental capacity which he has sought to adduce be limited to the issue of sentence.
The appellant had been earlier tried on the same charge and convicted on 10 November 2003, but his appeal against conviction was on 22 June 2004 allowed by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal on a ground not material to the present appeal and a retrial was ordered.
The Crown case against the appellant rested to a very large extent on the evidence of one Felix Browne, known as "Ding". The trial judge correctly directed the jury that he could be regarded as an accomplice. The following account is based exclusively on his evidence. Ding stated that on 8 January 2003 he and the appellant went to land at Carriere where the victim Albert Browne ("the deceased"), a man of 68 years, kept his goats. The appellant was carrying a firearm. He resolved to rob the deceased, but it is not clear from the evidence at what stage he formed that intention. When the deceased drew near the appellant told Ding to hide. When Ding looked out he saw that the appellant had the deceased on the ground and had held him up with the gun. The appellant demanded money, but the deceased said that he had given it away to his daughter and told the appellant that he could take his goats if he left him alone. When Ding told the appellant to leave the deceased alone, he asked Ding if he wanted him to leave the deceased for him to lock him up. He then took the deceased some little distance away and struck him in the stomach, causing him to fall on the bank of a "contour" or rain water ditch. He threw the deceased down into the contour and cut his throat with a cutlass which he had taken from the deceased, then cut off his head with the same implement. He removed the trousers from the body and wrapped the head in them. He handled the penis of the deceased and made a ribald remark about it. He positioned the body in the contour and slit the belly, explaining to Ding that he did so to stop the body from swelling. He covered up the body and stuffed the trousers containing the head into a hole under a plant in a nearby banana field.
The appellant picked out six goats belonging to the deceased and he and Ding took them away. They later attempted to sell the stolen goats. Some evidence was given on behalf of the Crown to the effect that witnesses had seen the appellant and Ding together on 8 January 2003, that he had not been at home on that date until he returned about midnight along with Ding and that he had offered on 13 January to sell goats to one Clement John.
The appellant made a statement to the police on 20 January 2003, in which he claimed that he had been at home all day and all night on 8 January, suffering from a bad back. He stated that Ding had been out that day and on his return had confessed to him that he had killed Albert Browne over a land dispute. He claimed that early on the next day, 9 January, he and Ding had set out to move the goats, but his back had begun to hurt him and he returned home, leaving Ding to complete the move. This statement was admitted in evidence and formed the basis of the defence adduced on behalf of the appellant, who did not give evidence at the trial.
Meanwhile Ding had co-operated with the police, showing them the place where the cutlass had been thrown by the appellant and identifying to them a number of goats which he said belonged to the deceased. Ding was not charged with any offence arising out of the attack on and death of the deceased.
On the appeal to the Board against conviction Mr Fitzgerald QC did not attempt to reopen any of the grounds argued before the Court of Appeal and dismissed by them. Instead he advanced two grounds of appeal, neither of which had been previously put forward, that the trial judge's directions in relation to accomplice evidence and to the appellant's lies as evidence of guilt were deficient. The two issues are to a degree interdependent, as counsel demonstrated in his written and oral argument.
Having directed the jury that they might regard Ding as an accomplice, the judge continued:
"I need, therefore, to tell you how to treat the evidence of an accomplice 'cause there are all sorts of reasons for an accomplice to tell lies, and to implicate other people, and for that reason it is dangerous for any jury to act on the evidence of an accomplice unless that evidence is corroborated in some material way. Corroboration means independent evidence. It can either take the form of direct, or circumstantial, independent evidence, which does not come from the accomplice, but which in some ways confirm or corroborate the evidence that the crime has been committed, and also that it was the defendant who committed the crime.
I will just briefly tell you a little bit of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is evidence of circumstances which can be relied upon, not as proving a fact directly, but as pointing to a fact. The Prosecution suggests that facts from which different witnesses have provided you where you take all of them together, there are strong circumstantial evidence pointing to Daniel Trimmingham as the person who murdered Albert Browne on Wednesday the 8 th of January. You have to examine all of this evidence in the case, and look for evidence that corroborates Felix Browne's testimony. What you should look for is evidence that agrees with the important parts of Felix Browne's testimony, and make you confident in your mind so that you be sure that it corroborates what Felix Browne has told you."
She pointed to some evidence which might be capable of constituting corroboration of Ding's testimony, stating:
"Note that the witnesses don't necessarily have to be able to say that they saw the entire murder. What the evidence should be of such a nature that when you put it together it should be capable of corroborating that it was the accused who murdered Albert Browne, and it is for you to determine, whether it does indeed so corroborate …"
The evidence to which the judge pointed was that of the several witnesses which tended to contradict the account of the appellant, by putting him in company with Ding on the day of the murder and not, as he claimed, at home all that day. None of them purported to have seen the murder committed or to be able to say who killed the deceased.
The judge then directed the jury:
"Note, however, Mr Foreman, if you are of the opinion, and you are sure in your mind, even if you were to find that Felix Browne was an accomplice; if you are sure in your mind that when Felix Browne gave evidence in this matter, he told you the truth, want to exercise the necessary caution and you are still convinced that he was speaking the truth, there is no need for corroboration. You are entitled to accept his evidence even if you find he is an accomplice, once you are convinced and sure that when he said to you the things in this box, and he said to you that the person who murdered Albert Browne on 8 th January was Daniel Trimmingham, if you are sure that you can believe him even though he is an accomplice, you don't have to look for any other corroborative evidence. But I must warn you once the person is an accomplice you have to exercise caution in dealing with his evidence."
Mr Fitzgerald QC for the appellant submitted that these directions were defective, in that the judge did not spell out why it was dangerous to convict on an accomplice's evidence and failed to make it sufficiently clear that the evidence relied on by way of corroboration only went so far as to contradict the appellant's...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Massinissa Adams and Others v R
...Against the Person Act and submitted that a sentencer has two options and thus the death penalty is discretionary. Relying on Donald Trimmingham v The Queen [2009] UKPC 25, she argued that in determining sentence: the court ought to adopt a comparative approach: it ought to consider the mit......
-
Romeo Cannonier Appellant v DPP Respondent [ECSC]
...so as to have the imposition of the death penalty. (per Mitchell, J.A. [Ag.] and Edwards, J.A.; Rawlins, C.J. dissenting). Daniel Dick Trimmingham v The Queen [2009] UKPC 25 applied; Ernest Lockhart v The Queen [2011] UKPC 33 applied. 8. A particular murder may not in its actual revoltin......
-
Romeo Cannonier Appellant v DPP Respondent [ECSC]
...so as to have the imposition of the death penalty. (per Mitchell, J.A. [Ag.] and Edwards, J.A.; Rawlins, C.J. dissenting). Daniel Dick Trimmingham v The Queen [2009] UKPC 25 applied; Ernest Lockhart v The Queen [2011] UKPC 33 applied. 8. A particular murder may not in its actual revoltin......
-
Peter Dougal v R
...the sentence of death was wrongly imposed and is manifestly excessive. 2Dr Williams submitted that the case of Trimmingham v The Queen [2009] UKPC 25 provides the necessary guidance in respect of a sentence for the offence of murder where the death penalty is an option. Therein, the Privy ......