Philip Joshua Rahming v The Queen
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough |
| Judgment Date | 20 May 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] UKPC 23 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 33 of 2001 |
| Date | 20 May 2002 |
[2002] UKPC 23
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Slynn of Hadley
Lord Steyn
Lord Hutton
Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Privy Council
[Delivered by Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough]
At the conclusion of the hearing on 4 December 2001 their Lordships agreed humbly to advise Her Majesty that the appeal ought to be allowed, a conviction for manslaughter substituted and the case remitted to the Court of Appeal for determination of sentence, and that they would give their reasons later. This they now do.
This is an appeal, pursuant to special leave given by their Lordships' Board, from a decision of the Court of Appeal of The Bahamas upholding the conviction on 23 April 1997 in the Supreme Court Nassau of the appellant, Philip Joshua Rahming, for the murder of Theresa Albert. (It appears that there had been an earlier trial which was aborted after the appellant had dismissed his counsel.)
The circumstances which led to the appellant's conviction were briefly as follows. On Saturday 20 May 1995, early in the afternoon, Theresa with her two younger sisters Nadia and Yvette and her daughter Valentina went to visit the appellant (then aged about 31) who lived near their home in Meeting Street Nassau and asked him to give them a lift into town in his car as they wished to go shopping. He agreed. At one point Theresa was left in the car with the appellant while Nadia and Yvette went into a shop to buy a pair of shoes. On her return to the car, Theresa said to Nadia: "He asked me for my body". The appellant interjected: "Nadia, do you believe that". On the way back, when they were getting near to where the girls lived, the car stalled and the girls got out to walk home. However, Theresa went a different way to the others. She said that she wanted to avoid meeting her friends. As they walked away Nadia noticed that the appellant had restarted the car and was driving alongside Theresa rapping to her. That was the last time they saw Theresa.
Later the same day, at about 5.00 pm, the appellant came to the girls' home to collect from Nadia a dollar which he had lent her during the shopping trip. According to the evidence at the trial, he had fresh scratches all over his face and what looked like a bite on one of his fingers; the wounds were dripping blood. He had not had any visible injuries earlier in the day. He told the girls that he had got his injuries playing basketball. Later that evening, when Theresa had not returned, the girls started looking for her. They went to where the appellant lived but got no answer. The next morning they went again to the appellant's apartment. Again there was no answer but they went in and saw the appellant bare chested with what they described as grab wounds on his chest which had not been there when they had seen him without his shirt on Saturday. Asked by Yvette if he was all right, he replied that he had got the injuries during a gambling game. He said that he had not seen Theresa. They asked him to come with them to the police but he refused. Theresa's disappearance was reported by Theresa's mother.
On Monday evening, the appellant went voluntarily to the police station and was arrested and (according to the police) cautioned. He told the arresting officer that he had got his injuries on Saturday evening while being robbed. Later on Monday evening, two police officers spoke further to the appellant. He said he had not seen Theresa since dropping her off on Saturday. They noticed that he had scratches on his arms and what looked like a bite. He said that he had been beaten in the course of a robbery which he had reported. The next morning, Tuesday, the appellant was taken to the hospital where he saw a doctor who examined his injuries. They were recorded as being bite marks to his cheeks, scratches to his left cheek, the left side of his neck and to his chest and his back and his arms.
He was later interviewed under caution by two officers. He said he had been involved in an argument in Meeting Street with Theresa and had fought with her. She fell to the ground unconscious. He left her there thinking that she would come round and go home. The appellant took the officer to the place in some bushes in Meeting Street where he said she had fallen but they could find no body. Back at the police station, he said that during the fight another man, Jeffrey Brooks, had come up and started to beat her. She fell unconscious. They left her but returned later and put the body in a blue sheet. He again gave the police a location in Meeting Street but no body could be found. Then he told them that they had taken the body to Skyline Drive and dumped it in some bushes there. The appellant took the police to the spot and the decomposing body of Theresa was found. It was only partially clothed. This occurred at about 8.35 pm on Tuesday. The following afternoon, in a fourth interview, the appellant said that Jeffrey Brooks had not been involved on the Saturday. At about 6.00 pm on the Wednesday, the defendant was charged with Theresa's murder. He was not brought before the magistrate until the morning of Saturday the 27th; the appellant later contended that his constitutional rights were thereby infringed.
The appellant chose to defend himself at his trial. He did not give evidence but made an unsworn statement from the dock. This statement sought to contradict the police evidence. What he had said in interview was the result of his being beaten and threatened by the police. He did not tell the police that the body had been dumped at Skyline Drive. It was the police who took him there after they had already found the body. "At no time did I volunteer information to the officers of my involvement or my knowledge with regard to Theresa Albert's disappearance and her murder".
The prosecution case at the trial was based upon the confession evidence corroborated by the finding of the body and its state when found and the circumstantial evidence coupled with the evidence of the appellant's interest in Theresa and his injuries and the lack of any satisfactory alternative explanation for them other than that they had been inflicted in a struggle with Theresa. The appellant took the point at the outset of the trial that the delay in bringing him before a magistrate should result in the stay or dismissal of the case. The judge, Osadebay J, ruled against him. He challenged the admissibility of the confession evidence on the grounds that the confessions were not voluntary. The judge held a voir dire in which the appellant took a full part, cross-examining the police witnesses, making an unsworn statement and calling Jeffrey Brooks. The judge ruled that the confessions were admissible; he did not however allow the prosecution to put in evidence a record of interview which had not been signed by the appellant. On the resumption of the trial, the prosecution called the police witnesses and the two sisters. They also called forensic evidence which was inconclusive although there was evidence that Theresa kept her finger nails long and material was found under her nails and that she had been killed by a heavy blow to the head administered with some blunt instrument or weapon. They called a witness, Karen Colebrook, who said that she had been with the appellant between about 3.00 am and 5.30 am on the Sunday morning. She also said that she had seen a "grab" on his neck and he was bleeding from his hand. The conduct of the trial was fair. The appellant appears from the transcript to have been fully capable of representing himself and to have raised and developed the defences upon which he wished to rely and was able to take advantage of the procedures open to him.
On his appeal to the Court of Appeal, the appellant was represented by counsel. The grounds of appeal related to the rulings made by the judge and his summing up. Counsel criticised the judge's ruling that the confessions were admissible. The relevant statutory provision is section 20 of the Evidence Act 1996 of The Bahamas which includes:
"(2) If, in any proceedings where the prosecution proposes to give in evidence a confession made by an accused person, it is represented to the court that the confession -
(a) was or may have been obtained by oppression of the person who made it; or
(b) is rendered unreliable by reason of anything said or done or omitted to be said or done in the circumstances existing at the time,
the court shall not allow the confession to be given in evidence against him except in so far as the prosecution proves to the court beyond reasonable doubt that the confession (notwithstanding that it may be true) was not obtained as aforesaid."
The Court of Appeal rejected this ground of appeal. The judge had held a voir dire and had accepted the police evidence. He was entitled to be satisfied in the terms of the subsection and that the confessions were indeed voluntary. The Court of Appeal rejected criticisms of some of the wording used by the judge as recorded by the court reporter: the judge had not misdirected himself. The Court of Appeal also rejected the second ground of appeal. It was argued that the evidence did not exclude that the killing was anything more than manslaughter; that the judge's summing-up on the definition of manslaughter was inadequate. The Court of Appeal pointed out that the appellant's defence was that he had had nothing to do with Theresa's death; he did not rely upon any defence of manslaughter; but the judge did (unnecessarily in the view of the Court of Appeal) leave the question of manslaughter to the jury and they returned a verdict of murder. The other grounds of appeal concerned the treatment of the evidence of the appellant's mother and the direction given upon burden and...
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