-But faces new trial
IN 1959, ‘Weeks’ was sentenced to death for the murder of Ismay Algoo, who was knifed to death.  He successfully appealed against conviction and sentence. Because of the leading of conflicting confession statements and inadmissible evidence which were tendered by the prosecution by means of an Occurrence Book,  the Federal Supreme Court, in its  Appellate Jurisdiction, allowed the appeal.
The conviction and death sentence were set aside, but in the interest of justice, a new trial was ordered.
The Federal Court was constituted by Justices Rennie, Archer and Wylie.
The facts of the case disclosed that on a trial for murder,  as to which there were no eye witnesses, two police constables  gave conflicting  versions of a confession alleged to have been made  by the accused, who himself  contradicted  both versions  in an unsworn statement from the dock.
The occurrence book  containing a note made at the time by one of the constables of the confession, was admitted in evidence  without objection  by counsel  for the appellant, who, moreover ,  cross-examined the constable about the entry, and addressed the jury upon it,  and the trial judge later suggested  to the jury  that the book could be used to resolve the conflict  in the evidence of the two constables.
On appeal, the admissibility of the occurrence book being challenged, it was argued  for the Crown that the book was  admissible as a refutation  of a suggestion  put in cross-examination  that no record of what  the appellant  had said  had been made, and also on the ground that the entry had been made  in the course of duty and contemporaneously  with the report.
The Appellate Court held that the occurrence book was inadmissible in evidence, and allowed  the appeal as stated.
Attorney-at-Law, Mr. J.O.F. Haynes, represented the appellant,  while the Acting Solicitor-General, G. L. B. Persaud  appeared  for he Crown.
Justice of Appeal Archer, who delivered the judgment  of the court,  noted that the appellant was convicted  of the murder of  Ismay Algoo.
According to him, the deceased came to her death from injuries  received  at her home about 2:30pm  on August  20, 1959.
Justice Archer  noted also that the post mortem examination disclosed  that death was due  to laceration of her brain with haemorrhage, following injury  to her head and multiple other  injuries.
The case  for the Crown  was that the appellant had inflicted  several incised wounds upon  the deceased ‘s  neck,  face, arms  and body with a razor while  they were in her bedroom, and had followed her into the kitchen  and then dealt her a blow  upon her head  with an axe.
At the trial, two eyewitnesses to the attack with the axe were put forward. They  were the  deceased’s two sisters,  who lived nearby, but there were no eyewitnesses to the alleged attack with the razor.
According to Justice Archer, the appellant went to the police station after the incident at the deceased’s house. The police  constable in charge of the inquiries office at the time  gave evidence that the appellant  told him that he and his reputed wife, Ismay Algoo, had had domestic worries;  that he had cut her with a razor; that he believed she was dead; and that he was trying to cut his neck with  the razor.
Another  police constable,  who was at the station when the appellant was there , said he was in the enquires office when he heard the appellant speak to the inquiries officer, saying that he had just killed Ismay Algoo; that he had a wound on the left side  of his neck; that the  inquires officer  asked him what was  wrong with his neck; and that he’d said he was trying to  kill himself  because  Ismay Algoo had ruined his life.
The appellant, in an unsworn statement from the dock,  said the deceased  had attacked him  with a razor; that a struggle had ensued  in the bedroom;  that she’d attempted  to run into the kitchen; and  that he’d tried to hold her back, but that she fell and hit her head on the axe.
This statement  was at variance  with the alleged admissions to the police  at the enquiries office,  and the discrepancies  between the evidence of the two  police constables, and therefore became of some importance, particularly in view of the  absence  of any direct evidence  as to what had occurred  in the bedroom.
The officer in charge of the inquiries office said that he had made a note  at the time in the occurrence book  of what the appellant had said.   He produced the occurrence book, and it was admitted in evidence  without objection by counsel for the appellant who,  moreover,  cross-examined  the officer concerning the entry he said  he had made and  addressed the jury upon it.
It had been submitted for the appellant that the occurrence book was inadmissible in evidence.    The trial judge commended  the occurrence  book to the attention  of the jury,  and invited them  to consider  whether  the version of the officer  who made the entry  in the book was more likely to be correct than the version of the other police constable.
The Solicitor-General had contended that it was admissible as a refutation of a suggestion put in cross-examination that no record  of what the appellant had said had been made, and also on the ground  that the entry had been made  in the course of duty  and contemporaneously  with the report.   He further submitted that even if the evidence was inadmissible, the jury must inevitably have arrived   at the same conclusion, if it had not been admitted.
As Justice Archer observed in his summation:  “We are clearly of the view that the occurrence book was inadmissible in evidence.
“The judge should have excluded it, and the misapprehension as to its admissibility, and the failure of the appellant’s counsel to object to its admission cannot be allowed to operate to the prejudice of the appellant.
“We feel  unable to say  how  the jury,  unassisted by the occurrence book, would have regarded such conflict as there was between the evidence of the two police constables, or to what extent such conflict,  considered in the light of the appellant’s unsworn statement, might or might not have made a verdict of not guilty of murder possible.
“We think that in the circumstances, the conviction should not stand, and the appeal is therefore allowed, the conviction and sentence set aside, and a new trial is ordered.
“In view of the course we have taken, it is unnecessary and, indeed, undesirable to deal with the other grounds of appeal.    Appeal allowed, new trial ordered.”