Christopher Campbell v R

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Judge: Brooks JA
• Judgment Date: 23 January 2014
• Neutral Citation: JM 2014 CA 2
• Docket Number: SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NO 10/2011
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Date: 23 January 2014

[2014] JMCA Crim 8

JAMAICA

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

Before:

The Hon Mr Justice Panton P

The Hon Mr Justice Brooks JA

The Hon Ms Justice Mangatal JA (Ag)

SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NO 10/2011

Christopher Campbell

and

R

Mrs Carolyn Reid-Cameron for the applicant

Miss Maxine Jackson for the Crown

CRIMINAL LAW - Illegal possession of firearm - Shooting with intent - Visual identfication evidence - Improper identification

ORAL JUDGMENT

Brooks JA

1 This is an application by Mr Christopher Campbell for permission to appeal against his conviction and sentence in the Western Regional Gun Court held in Saint James on 11 January 2011. A single judge of this court refused Mr Campbell permission to appeal but he has renewed his application before the court. Mr Campbell was convicted on an indictment charging him with illegal possession of firearm and shooting with intent. He was sentenced, on 17 January 2011, to serve 15 years imprisonment on each count. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

2 The convictions arise out of allegations, which were accepted by the tribunal of fact, that on 11 June 2010, at about 3:00 in the afternoon, a party of police officers went to premises at Long Wall, Glendevon, in the parish of Saint James. They had gone there in search of Mr Campbell, whom they had known before. On entering the premises, three of the officers saw Mr Campbell, whom they described as beingdressed in a white merino and orange shorts. He was then standing in the yardto the rear of the premises. Mr Campbell, they noticed, had a firearm in his hand.

3 The police say that they called to him and he fired in the direction of two of them and ran. He fired more shots after running. They heard the explosions at the time that he fired. The two officers who were closer to him returned the fire but he made good his escape. The police then left the scene.

4 At about 5:00 on the same afternoon, two of the same policeofficers, acting on information, went to the Cornwall Regional Hospital. They were accompanied by an officer who was investigating the shooting incident. The trio went to the Accident and Emergency Department of the hospital where they saw Mr Campbell dressed in the same clothing that he was wearing when they saw him earlier in Glendevon. He was then lying on a stretcher suffering from gunshot injuries to the chest. Upon being cautioned by the investigating officer, Mr Campbell denied having fired at the police and said that he had been shot by a man at Green Pond in the said parish of Saint James.He was then arrested and charged for the offences mentioned above.

5 At his trial, Mr Campbell made an unsworn statement. He said that he was a welder. He said that he did not know those policemen and that he never fired any shots after any police officers. That was the extent of his statement to the court.

6 In his application before this court, Mr Campbell has advanced two grounds on which he contended that his conviction ought to be set aside. The first, is that the learned trial judge, D O McIntosh J, erred in law in failing to warn himself in accordance with the guidelinesset out in R v Turnbull [1976] 3 All ER 349, concerning the dangers ofrelying on visual identification. The second, is that the learned trial judge failed to consider the weaknesses in the identification evidence.

7 Mrs Reid-Cameron, who appeared for Mr Campbell in this application, argued both grounds together. Her submissions maybe summarizedas follows:

1

The warning that the learned trial judge gave himself in respect of visual identification was deficient. 2. In light of the inadequacy of the warning he did not take into account that honest witnesses maybe mistaken. 3. He did not take into account the weaknesses and did not assess them. 4. Hetherefore did not adhere to the guidelines set out in the Turnbull case. 5. The learned trial judge only rehearsed evidence in a round-about and global way and therefore did not demonstrate that he applied the full content of the Turnbull warning as he should have. 6. He erroneously determined that the witnesses were corroborating each other in the circumstances where the requirements of the Turnbull warnings were not met.

8 In addition to Turnbull, Mrs Reid-Cameron relied on R v Balasaland Anor (1990) 27 JLR 507 in support of her submissions.

9 In response to those submissions, Miss Jackson, on behalf of the Crown,made submissions along two basic lines. Firstly, she argued that there is no requirement laid down in Turnbull for any specific formula of words to be used by the learned trial judge who is sitting alone.Miss...