Doyley (Christopher)

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Judge: FORTE, P.
• Judgment Date: 18 February 2004
• Neutral Citation: JM 2004 CA 3
• Judgment citation (vLex): [2004] 2 JJC 1802
• Date: 18 February 2004
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

BEFORE:

THE HON. MR. JUSTICE FORTE, P THE HON. MR. JUSTICE WALKER, J.A THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COOKE, J.A. (AG.)

R.

V.

CHRISTOPHER DOYLEY

Nelton Forsythe for the Applicant

David Fraser for the Crown.

CRIMINAL LAW - Robbery with aggravation - Identification evidence

FORTE, P.

1 The applicant was tried and convicted on the 10 ^th April 2001 in the High Court Division of the Gun Court on 6 counts of an Indictment containing four (4) counts of robbery with aggravation (Counts 3 – 6), one count of rape (Count 2) and one for illegal possession of firearm (Count 1). He was sentenced as follows:

Count 1	-	10 years imprisonment at hard labour
Count 2	-	21 years imprisonment at hard labour
Counts 3,4,5 & 6	18 years imprisonment on each count.

2 It was ordered that the sentences should run concurrently.

3 The Crown, at trial, alleged that the applicant and another man invaded the home of M while she was receiving visits from the other Crown witnesses, raped her, and robbed all her visitors. Both men were armed at one time or another with a gun, a machete and a knife, the possession of which they changed between them from time to time during the incident. In a relatively detailed summation, the learned trial judge expressly accepted the evidence of the Crown witnesses and rejected that of the applicant and his witness. At the hearing before us, the applicant through his counsel, Mr. Nelton Forsythe, argued one ground of appeal i.e. "that the verdict of the Court was unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the tenuous nature of the identification of the applicant."

4 No complaint was made, and correctly so, of the treatment by the learned trial judge of the principles of law to be applied in assessing evidence of visual identification, which was the sole issue in the case.

5 The applicant was purportedly identified by three witnesses, M, Mr. P and Mr. R. Mr. D who was also present and was also robbed, did not attempt to identify his assailant. Three of those persons were present in M's apartment in Spanish Town, St. Catherine when two men entered therein at 10:30 p.m. on the 26 ^th December 2000. The witness P who was not present when the men entered, later came in search of M and was immediately held at gun point by one of the assailants. When the men entered, one was armed with a gun and the other with a machete. Mr. R and Mr. D were ordered to lie down on the floor, and M who was then sitting on the bed, was ordered to sit on the floor. Having obeyed, the occupants of the room were tied up, searched and their valuables taken from them. In the end, M was deprived of her wrist watch, a necklace and other items of jewellery. Mr. R was deprived of his wrist watch valued at $6,000 and $8,500 in cash; Mr. P was robbed of J$41,000.00 and US$21.00 which was subsequently taken from his apartment which adjoins that of M. During the course of the incident, which it was alleged lasted in excess of an hour, M was taken into another room, on different occasions by the two men, and raped. The identification of the men was obstructed by the fact that both wore masks which covered the bottom half of their faces. In those circumstances, what was the state of the identification evidence?

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