Peter Stewart v The Queen
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | LORD BROWN |
| Judgment Date | 18 May 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] UKPC 11 |
| Date | 18 May 2011 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No 61 of 2010 |
| Court | Privy Council |
[2011] UKPC 11
Lord Hope
Lady Hale
Lord Brown
Lord Kerr
Lord Dyson
Privy Council
Appellant
John Aspinall QC
Nicholas Robinson
(Instructed by Dorsey & Whitney (Europe) LLP)
Respondent
James Dingemans QC
Tom Poole
(Instructed by Charles Russell LLP)
At about 1 pm on 14 May 2001 Lloyd Harvey (the deceased), a man of 28, was shot dead on the veranda of his house at 193 Zimbabwe 9 th Street, Arnette Gardens, Trench Town, Kingston, Jamaica.
On 12 May 2003, following a two week trial before McIntosh J and a jury at the Home Circuit Court, the appellant was convicted of the deceased's murder and on 16 May 2003 sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 40 years. On 21 November 2005 the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant's appeal against conviction but allowed his appeal against sentence to the extent of substituting 30 years for 40 years as the period of non-eligibility for parole. On 26 October 2010 the Board granted the appellant special leave to appeal against his conviction.
The deceased shared his house on 9 th Street with his girlfriend, Lydia Minnott, who was the principal witness for the prosecution. Her evidence was that, on the day in question, the appellant, together with his mother and his young nephew, had come to the house and there had been an argument between them and the deceased. The appellant and his mother were "cussing" the deceased and at one point the appellant asked the deceased "Weh you diss up me nephew for?" There came a stage in which the appellant pointed his gun at the deceased and she (Ms Minnott) telephoned for the police. Shortly after that the appellant shot the deceased in the side of the head. Ms Minnott was at that time some five feet away from the deceased, the gunman a further two or three feet away. After that the appellant was joined by two other men ("Taffie" and "Peenie") who took the gun and between them shot the deceased a further few times as he lay on the veranda floor. A fourth man, the appellant's brother Shane, then arrived at the scene but did not fire a shot. All four men then ran off behind the house and into the gardens of Trench Town School. It was Ms Minnott's evidence, largely unchallenged, that she had known the appellant, his mother and his brother, Shane, for some years (as we shall shortly come to relate).
DC Myers arrived at the scene some five or six minutes after the shooting and found the deceased's body on the veranda lying face down in a pool of blood with wounds to the head, neck and back. He took a statement from Ms Minnott who told him that the man who fired the first shot was "Peter, Miss Patsy son", that she did not know his surname but "the family is known by the policemen who live in the area and work in the area". DC Myers said that with the assistance of other police officers who knew the appellant he quickly discovered his surname to be Stewart. Based on that information, the very next day (15 May 2001) he prepared warrants for the appellant's (and the other three men's) arrest, but it was not until 10 December 2001 that he was in fact able to execute the warrant on the appellant. DC Myers said that he and other officers had searched everywhere that he heard the appellant usually frequented including the church that he attended. When charged on 10 December 2001 with the deceased's murder and cautioned, the appellant made no reply.
By the date of trial in 2003 the appellant was aged 23, Ms Minnott some two or three years older. She said that she had known the appellant (whom she knew just as "Peter", the only Peter she in fact did know) for a long time, having attended the same class with him at Trench Town Primary School. She said that she regularly passed his house and would see the appellant "every day" because he used to come to her house to buy things from her. This continued right up to the time of the murder, the last time she saw the appellant before that being at church the previous Sunday. She had also known the appellant's mother for some years: his mother had used to sell goods at the school gate. The appellant's elder brother, Shane, had also been at the primary school with her.
Although the defence challenged Ms Minnott's evidence that she was actually in the same primary school class as the appellant, there was no real challenge to her in fact knowing the appellant and his family in the way she described and accordingly being in a position to have recognised them on the day of the killing as she said she did. During cross-examination, Ms Minnott said that at a court hearing at Half Way Tree - nearly a year before the trial, presumably the preliminary inquiry into the case against the appellant, at that stage involving Shane also - she had told the judge that it was Peter who had shot the deceased, not Shane; Shane had not fired a shot.
The appellant gave his account by way of an unsworn statement from the dock. He said that he was a painter and lived at 20 Bay Farm Road, Kingston. He said that he did not know anything about going to school with Lydia Minnott; that he left Trench Town Primary School at the age of ten, at which point he went to Greenwich All Age school; that he did not know anyone called "Mother Patsy"; and that his mother was called Marva MaCalla and had died and was buried at Duff Cot. He stated that he was innocent and did not shoot anyone.
It is not altogether clear whether the defence being suggested to the jury at trial was that Ms Minnott was lying or that she was mistaken in identifying the appellant as the killer. At all events the summing up appears to the Board to have dealt satisfactorily with either possibility.
What, then, are the...
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...whom I have identified to police as the person who committed the crime is the person who stands in the dock." 35 In Stewart v The Queen [2011] UKPC 11, 79 WIR 409 the identifying witness, Ms Minnott, claimed to have known the appellant and his family for a long time. Although the defence a......
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Stephen Stubbs v R
...person whom I have identified to police as the person who committed the crime is the person who stands in the dock’. [35] In Stewart v R [2011] UKPC 11, (2011) 79 WIR 409 the identifying witness, Ms Minnott, claimed to have known the appellant and his family for a long time. Although the de......
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Leslie Moodie v R
...but has merely made an unsworn statement, the importance of the [credibility direction] is reduced’. Then, in Stewart v The Queen [2011] UKPC 11, para. 15, Lord Brown said that ‘the credibility limb of the direction is likely to be altogether less helpful to the defendant in a case like thi......