Tight shoes not enough to prevent progress of appeal

At the Court of Appeal(COA) on Monday a man from Campden Park sought to have his case adjourned because of tight shoes.

Maurice Cupid told Justices of Appeal Louise Esther Blenman, Gertel Thom, and Margaret Price-Findlay that he wanted to ask for an adjournment “please”, because his shoes were burning him a lot and squeezing his feet.

The Justices of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), who are based in other countries, presided via electronic medium for the duration of this week in order to hear a number of scheduled appeals.

Cupid appeared at the second High Court courtroom, where a camera and microphones were being used to livestream to the Justices of Appeal.

One of the Justices told Cupid that he may take off his shoes and Cupid did so, placing them in the dock beside him.

When asked if he was more comfortable now, he confirmed that he was. Therefore, the hearing of his appeal was able to commence.

The 62-year-old had appealed a sentence that was handed down in the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court on June 30, 2020 wherein he was ordered to pay compensation of $3000 to Andy Duncan for wounding him. Cupid was also ordered to pay a fine of $1000. Both payments were to be made by December 31, 2020.

Failing the payment of the compensation Cupid would have to spend nine months in prison, and failing the payment of the fine, he would spend six months incarcerated. Failing both, the sentences would run concurrently.

The facts as presented in court by the crown are that on August 11, 2019, at about 7:45 a.m, Duncan was sitting on a bench under a shed in Campden Park. Cupid approached him with a cutlass and said “ah you self me come look for”. They had apparently had an altercation the day before about a charger.

Cupid hit Duncan with the cutlass, and Duncan tried to escape him.

“Way the f*** you gwine aryo feel aryo ah bad man,” Cupid told him, pulling him from the wall and striking him with the cutlass repeatedly. Cupid declared that he didn’t care and had already made up his mind.

Duncan received a 2.5cm wound to the ear and a 10cm wound to the leg.

There was said to be several eyewitnesses to the incident and when the police went to take Cupid into custody he told them “officer ah me aryo come for me done pack me bag with clothes to go Court”.

In Cupid’s version of the incident he spoke about Duncan pulling a knife on him and throwing a stool but this was not accepted by the magistrate.

On Monday, January 24, Cupid advocated for himself while the crown was represented by counsel Kaylia Toney.

The Campden Park resident told the Justices, among other things, that Duncan had raised up just as he (Cupid) was going to ‘plan’ him in the head with a cutlass, and this is what caused Duncan to receive the cut to the ear.

The court pointed out that the victim spent three days in the hospital and he had lost a piece of his ear.

Cupid also argued that it had been a very long time that he managed to stay out of any trouble.

Justice Blenman told him that the sentence was lenient. “..There is no basis for you to say the sentence is excessive. And for this court to interfere we have to come to the conclusion the sentence was excessive,” she told him.

“…In my view the magistrate was very generous to you. Very lenient,” the Justice continued, “No criticism to that magistrate but you did very well. For these sort of ‘facts’…Ordinarily a defendant would have gotten a short, sharp penalty. Few months in prison.”

Justice Blenman said she was of the view that there was nothing in Cupid’s appeal.

Justice Thom agreed, noting there had been no mitigating factors found by the magistrate’s court.

Justice Price-Findlay agreed, “And not only that. The magistrate clearly found that the virtual complainant (Duncan) did not have a knife.”

Justice Blenman said that even if the other person had a knife there were other legal considerations, “And for Mr Cupid to be bold enough to tell this court today that ‘it’s just a piece of the man ear you take off’. To me it’s an amount of audacity to say that to a court.”

The unanimous ruling of the court was delivered by Blenman.

She said that clearly the aims of sentencing would have engaged the magistrate’s attention, and “the magistrate in his very careful judgement indicated the mitigating factors, which there were none, and the aggravating factors, there were several.”

Blenman said that there is nothing in their view which leads to the conclusion that the sentence is excessive.

“In fact to the contrary, in our unanimous view, the sentence was very lenient. Offences of this nature ordinarily would have attracted custodial sentences.”

In the circumstances they did not believe there was any merit in the complaint against the magistrate’s sentence.
“Accordingly we are of the view that the appeal against the sentence ought to be dismissed and the sentence of the learned magistrate is affirmed,” the court ruled.

The court also has a discretion on these appeals that it may increase the sentence given. However, the court said that in this particular case it would not exercise the discretion to increase the sentence.

With the sentence against him being affirmed, it became necessary for Cupid to meet his obligations of compensation to his victim. He had paid the fine before filing his appeal on July 10, 2020, ten days after his sentence, but not the compensation.