Deshan Rampharry v The State
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Sir Andrew Leggatt |
| Judgment Date | 20 January 1999 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1999] UKPC J0120-1 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 8 of 1998 |
| Date | 20 January 1999 |
[1999] UKPC J0120-1
Privy Council
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead
Lord Clyde
Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough
Lord Cooke of Thorndon
Sir Andrew Leggatt
[Delivered by Sir Andrew Leggatt]
The appellant Deshan Rampharry was indicted for the murder of Meera Sammy on 26th June 1990 at Tabaquite. At his trial before Justice L. Deyalsingh and a jury on 29th July 1993 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Their Lordships were told by counsel that this sentence has subsequently been commuted to one of 75 years' imprisonment. On appeal to the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago each of the three grounds of appeal and the appeal itself were withdrawn, and on 18th March 1997 the appeal was accordingly dismissed. The appellant appeals as a poor person by special leave. Since the ground of appeal now relied on differs from all those argued and withdrawn in the Court of Appeal, it is not necessary to refer to the judgment of that Court.
The appellant lived with Meera Sammy as husband and wife from 1979 until they separated in October 1989. During that time they had three children. At trial following a voir dire a statement by the appellant under caution was admitted in evidence notwithstanding that he denied having made it. In it he described how he evicted Meera Sammy from their home in October 1989 because on the day after he suspected her of having had a man in the house he saw her elsewhere in company of a man he did not know. He described how he went to see her on 26th June 1990. According to him she accused him of spreading a rumour that they had had sex on the beach. He replied that the children were dying to see her. The statement continued:-
"She … went into the house and came back with a long knife. She keep pushing the knife in my face. I tell her to stop, I eh come here for that she made a stab at me and I get cut in my hand. I hold on to her and we started to fight for the knife. I finally got away the knife from her I think I made a few stabs at her but I cannot say where the knife stab her."
The appellant then described how 12 or more people chased him before he was arrested by a police officer.
The Crown called two witnesses of the incident. Anthony Subero, who knew both the appellant and Meera Sammy, said that he was 20 to 25 feet away when the appellant was with her arguing. "She was saying 'ah not going back' and he was saying how the children want to see her etc". A few seconds later he looked up and saw the appellant pounding her. At the point when she bawled "Oh God" and spun round he saw a knife in the appellant's right hand. "He was holding her right hand with his left hand and he was stabbing her with the knife". When Mr. Subero went towards them equipped with a piece of wood the appellant dropped the knife, and started running. The knife was later found in three pieces. The other eye witness was Rajin Garcia. He said in evidence that when he first saw the appellant and Meera Sammy they were arguing, and that the stabbing took place when he came back out of the trace, or alley, where he lived. When he saw the stabbing he started running towards them. The appellant was "pounding on her chest with something like a knife in his hands". When giving his evidence he demonstrated as he said:-
"I see [the appellant] take she hand and pull it so and then start to pound her with knife."
Meera Sammy's brother gave evidence of an occasion during the separation when the appellant went to his wife's home, "took out a knife from the kitchen … held it in his hand, and told her this is the knife I'll use to kill you". The post mortem report showed that the dead woman sustained ten superficial stab wounds to the face and upper body in addition to the fatal stabbing through the heart which was 7.5cm deep.
When the appellant gave evidence he denied having threatened his wife, as her brother alleged. He said that on 26th June 1990 he was talking to his wife with his hand on her shoulder when he felt a lash on the right side of his chest. Looking round he saw it was Mr. Subero, whom he did not know. He said that Mr. Subero took from his wife the knife she had in her hand "and started pelting stabs at me". He went on:-
"Meera Sammy got between both of us and got stabbed by Andy Subero. I got cuts in my hand from 'braksing' the stabs."
This evidence was rightly described by Mr. Owen Davies, who appeared for the appellant before the Board, though not in the courts below, as "a preposterous defence" and as "defying credibility".
In the course of his summing-up, after summarising the evidence, the judge told the jury that, although he personally did not think it applied, he would have to give them directions on provocation "out of an abundance of caution" and "to be safe". After an overnight adjournment, he began by directing them that provocation would only arise if they accepted what the accused said in his statement. He told them that provocation consists of three elements, the third of which was that "the retaliation of the accused must be proportionate to the provocative acts". He went on to explain this by saying:-
"This is similar to self-defence. There must be some proportion between the retaliation by the accused and the actual provocative acts. And again I could use the same example I used with self-defence. If someone slaps you that may be a provocative act, but that wouldn't cause a reasonable man to take a knife and stab the other person in return. It certainly shouldn't in our country cause an accused person under those circumstances to do so nor should it cause a reasonable man to do so. So you look also at this third element. So we have been talking about the reasonable man and what is reasonable both in the context of self-defence and provocation. And the reasonable man must be judged in the context of the social standards that apply in Trinidad today, and the reasonable man of course means an ordinary person of either sex, not exceptionally excitable or [pugnacious] or quarrelsome or aggressive, who is possessed of such powers of self-control as everyone is entitled to expect that his fellow citizens would exercise in society as it is today. That kind of person is the reasonable person."
In his admirably concise argument Mr. Davies focused exclusively upon the direction which counsel were agreed is a misdirection, that "the retaliation of the accused must be proportionate to...
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