Jeffery Peart v R Roxanne Peart
| Jurisdiction | Jamaica |
| Judge | Straw JA |
| Judgment Date | 21 May 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] JMCA Crim 18 |
| Docket Number | SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS 2 & 6/2015 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Jamaica) |
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
THE HON Mr Justice Brooks JA
THE HON Mr Justice F Williams JA
THE HON Miss Justice Straw JA
SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS 2 & 6/2015
Miss Gillian Burgess for the applicant Jeffery Peart
Mrs Carol Dacosta for the applicant Roxanne Peart
Miss Maxine Jackson and Miss Alexia McDonald for the Crown
On 18 June 2020, after hearing submissions from counsel, we made orders in the following terms:
“1. The applications for leave to appeal against conviction in respect of both applicants are refused.
2. The application by Mr Jeffery Peart for leave to appeal against sentence, is granted and the hearing of the application is treated as the hearing of the appeal.
3. The appeal in respect of Mr Jeffery Peart in respect of sentence is allowed and the sentence of 35 years is set aside and is reduced to 33 years to account for the time that he spent on remand before sentence.
4. The application by Miss Roxanne Peart for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.
5. The sentences in both cases are to be reckoned as having commenced on 17 December 2014.”
These are the reasons which we promised to give.
The applicants, Mr Jeffery Peart and Ms Roxanne Peart are brother and sister. On 19 November 2014, after a somewhat lengthy trial before Daye J (‘the learned judge’) and a jury sitting in the Saint Ann Circuit Court, the pair were found guilty on an indictment charging them with the offence of murder. On 17 December 2014, the learned judge imposed sentences of life imprisonment on both applicants with the stipulation that Mr Peart should serve 35 years before becoming eligible for parole, and Ms Peart should serve 16 years before becoming similarly eligible for parole.
Both applications for leave to appeal were refused by a single judge of this court and the applications were renewed before this court for consideration.
The Crown's case against the applicants was that Ms Peart lured Delroy Frame (‘the deceased’) to a district in the parish of Saint Ann where Mr Peart, then a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, murdered and decapitated the deceased. She did this by way of a series of telephone calls to the deceased. The case was based primarily on circumstantial evidence, which included evidence of mobile call data, as well as the testimony of over 20 witnesses who were called to give evidence.
It is useful to briefly outline the facts of the case. On the evening of 19 May 2012, sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 pm, police officers, whilst on patrol, received a telephone call which caused them to proceed to the White Sand district in the parish of Saint Ann. This area is adjacent to the community of Bohemia on the border of the parishes of Saint Ann and Manchester. Upon arrival, they found a partially burnt out motor car parked to the left side of the road. There were no documents inside the said motor car, but the police were subsequently able to use the chassis number in their investigation, which was linked to the deceased.
Blood was also observed further along the road. Upon conducting a search of some bushes and under a bridge, Corporal Clinton Grant, a member of the patrol team, discovered a headless body in a ditch. This was some 15 feet from the main road. The upper part of the body had several cut injuries.
Along with the body, Constable Glenroy Williams removed blood and spent casings. The blood found on the road was matched to the headless body by way of forensic and DNA tests which were conducted. A post-mortem examination also revealed that there were three attempts to decapitate the deceased, who was subsequently identified as Delroy Frame, a taxi operator who operated between the parishes of Hanover and Westmoreland. This identification was initially made by Marcia Shirley and Dawn Frame, the deceased's common law wife and sister respectively, who recognised his clothing and a birth mark on one of his legs. DNA tests confirmed the identification of the deceased, based on a comparison to buccal swabs that were taken from the deceased's parents, Mrs Palmita Frame and Mr Harold Frame.
At the time of his death, the deceased was a complainant and sole key witness in a criminal matter involving the applicant, Mr Peart. During the course of the investigation of the deceased's death, Mr Peart was apprehended by the police, at which time his licensed firearm was taken for ballistics testing. Mr Peart also participated in a question and answer session, where he provided cellular phone numbers for himself, his mother and his fiancée, Vivienne Reid. He was later released.
Following additional investigation, Mr Peart was again taken into custody by the police. The spent casings recovered in the vicinity of the scene of the crime, were found to be a match with Mr Peart's licensed firearm. The police also recorded a statement from one of Mr Peart's girlfriends, Kadena Jarrett (‘Ms Jarrett’). She did not testify at trial, having previously died, but her statement was read into evidence. Her account was that, on the morning of 19 May 2012, around 9:00 am, she loaned Mr Peart her 2007 Nissan Tiida motor car, which he returned the following day around 12:18 am. At the time of the return, Ms Jarrett stated that Ms Peart (who she referred to as Roxene) was seated in the front passenger seat. Ms Jarrett drove with the applicants to their home in Little London, in the parish of Westmoreland and subsequently returned home in the said vehicle.
Later that day, Ms Jarrett observed that Mr Peart did not return her car in the same condition that she had loaned it to him. She stated that it was dirty on the outside as well as parts of the interior. She observed that the spare tyre had been moved, as there was white dust on it and there was dust and what appeared to be blood in the trunk of the car. This caused her to take the car to be washed. Subsequent forensic analysis of Ms Jarrett's motor car revealed that the blood found in the trunk matched the blood found in the roadway and the deceased's body.
Although Ms Jarrett gave details of knowing Ms Peart in her statement, she failed to point her out on an identification parade. When Ms Peart was apprehended by the police and cautioned, she told Detective Sergeant Alford Stoddart that she was previously employed to the Sunset Beach Resort. Detective Sergeant Stoddart's investigations led him to the said hotel where he received Ms Peart's job application form from the manager, Mr Samuel Henry (‘Mr Henry’). The application form contained Ms Peart's personal information, including her address, date of birth, schools attended, telephone numbers, references and emergency contact details. Mr Henry recalled conducting an interview with Ms Peart and that she had worked at the hotel but he was unable to point her out in court.
The Crown also relied on the testimony of Mr Shane Wint (‘Mr Wint’), who claimed to know Mr Peart on account of being in the same grade at school with him. Mr Wint said that he saw Mr Peart in the vicinity of his uncle's shop in Wild Cane district around 8:30 pm, on the night of 19 May 2012. Wild Cane is an adjacent district to White Sand, where the deceased's body and motor car were respectively found. His evidence was that there was another person in the car with Mr Peart but he was unable to say who it was. On 31 May 2012, he identified the applicant, Mr Peart on an identification parade.
As previously mentioned, mobile call data was a significant feature of the Crown's case and as such, a brief summary is necessary. Between 17 May and 19 May 2012, one of the telephone numbers on Ms Peart's application form (867–9243 which was listed as her contact number) was in constant communication with the deceased's telephone number (867–8664). There were over 50 calls between these two numbers during that period.
On 19 May 2012 (the last day on which the deceased was seen alive), the call data analysis revealed what appeared to be almost simultaneous communication between 867–9243 and Mr Peart's telephone numbers (882–7082 and 446–8598; Mr Peart accepted the former but denied the latter number belonged to him). The Crown asked the jury to draw the inference that 867–9243 belonged to Ms Peart. There were also communications between 867–9243 and the numbers for Mr Peart, his girlfriends (namely, Ms Jarrett and Vivienne Reid) and the applicants' mother, Patricia Walker.
Further, the call data records showed that the telephone numbers associated with the applicants were receiving calls in the coverage area of Bohemia (located on the border of the parishes of Saint Ann and Manchester, where the applicants grew up), which is adjacent to the districts of Wild Cane and White Sand. As part of its case, the Crown called Corporal Maurice Goode, a call data expert, to give evidence in relation to the movement of the numbers attributed to the applicants. His evidence was that there was movement from the parish of Westmoreland to Bohemia on 19 May 2012, and from Bohemia to Westmoreland from 19 May to around 12:18 am on 20 May 2012.
There were calls between the number attributed to the deceased and the number attributed to Ms Peart. These converged in the Little London cell site area at 5:22 pm on 19 May 2012. The last call received by the deceased from Ms Peart's number, was at 5:44 pm that day, in the area of the Ferris Cross cell site area (at the border of Saint Elizabeth and Westmoreland).
Both applicants gave unsworn statements denying their involvement in the murder and called character witnesses.
Mr Peart raised the defence of alibi. He denied travelling to Bohemia on 19 May 2012. He stated that the last time he visited Bohemia was in 2011 and that he was in the parish of Westmoreland for the entire weekend. He also denied firing his licenced...
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Clifton Harrison v R
...becoming eligible for parole. This court refused to interfere with his parole stipulation. 132 In Jeffrey Peart and Roxanne Peart v R [2021] JMCA Crim 18 (‘ Peart v R’), the applicants, who were siblings, were convicted for murder in circumstances where the female lured the deceased to a di......