TAXI driver Cyril Dennan, who murdered his lover, Patsy Folkard, in 1976 and was sentenced to death after being convicted by the jury, tried to escape the gallows by appealing the matter, on the grounds that he did not have a fair trial.

But, the Guyana Court of Appeal, constituted by Chief Justice Harry Bollers and Justices of Appeal Dhan Jhappan and Keith Massiah, ruled that Dennan must die.
The death row inmate, who was represented by Attorney-at-law Mr. James Patterson, had asked the Appeal Court, through his lawyer, to find that the trial judge had erred by admitting oral confession statements without satisfying himself that the confessions were voluntarily made.
But the Appeal Court dismissed the matter after concluding that “the spontaneity of the oral confession: ‘Officer, me and she had a story on Sunday night, and I beat she up and she dead’” was decisive. The question of involuntariness did not properly arise, the court found.
The appeal was dismissed, and the conviction and death sentence affirmed.
The facts of the case disclosed that Dennan and Folkard had been living at his mother’s home; that he’d decided to break with the illicit affair, but Folkard would not hear of it, and had taken to following him around, and molesting and abusing him at every opportunity. A fight soon ensued, in the course of which Dennan struck Folkard in the face. She retaliated and struck him with a stick. She died the morning after the fight, after spending the night with Dennan at his mother’s house.
An autopsy revealed multiple abrasions in the region of the chest and abdomen, four on the right arm, seventeen on the neck, four on the right knee and two on the left hip.  It was evident that the deceased had been savagely beaten, and that the cause of death  was internal haemorrhage and shock with rupture of the liver .  There was no eyewitnesses, but the appellant’s cousin swore that the appellant told him he’d beaten Folkard and that she had died.
The defence was that Dennan did not  kill Folkard; that he’d only hit her in the face and  not on the other parts of her body, clearly implying that he was not responsible for the injuries found thereon.  The jury, however, found him guilty.
On appeal to the Guyana Court of Appeal, it was contended that the trial judge erred in admitting in evidence two allegedly oral confession statements to a police corporal.
The first of them was made at 2:45am on July 27, 1976 at the appellant’s home, after caution during investigations there in the course of which the appellant said:  “Officer, me and she had a story on Sunday night, and I beat she up and she dead.” The defence offered no objection to the admissibility of that statement after the policeman testified that it was not procured by threats, inducements, promise or force, and that it was free and voluntary.
The second oral confession was made at about 4:00am the same day, again at the appellant’s home when the Cpl showed him two jute bags containing Folkard’s body.  The appellant immediately said: “Officer, this is my girlfriend, Patsy Folkard.  I beat she up and she dead.” Here again, it was contended, the confession was inadmissible, for the same reason advanced in respect of the first oral confession.
The appellant also complained  about a statement  Folkard had made  to his mother, in which she allegedly said: “Cyril beat me up; meh face swell up and  ah can’t go home in duh condition.” He contended that it ought to have been explained to the jury but was not, and so they might well have considered it evidence of the facts as had happened  in the DPP v Christie (6).  It was also contended that the trial judge had not dealt adequately with provocation, having done so only in relation to the appellant’s unsworn statement from the dock, but not in relation to the written statements he made to the police.

Among other things,  the Appellate Court held that:

(1)  In relation to the first oral confession, there was sufficient prima facie evidence on which the trial judge could have founded the conclusion that the oral statement was made freely and voluntarily, and could properly have exercised his discretion to admit it.

(2)    In relation to the second oral confession, the prima facie evidence  required to establish the foundation  for its reception in evidence  as a voluntary statement was lacking; but it was clearly not because of any judicial qualification of Lord Sumner’s formulation, for this was impermissible, but because being spontaneous, the question of involuntariness does not properly arise.

(3)    It was difficult to see how the appellant could, with justification, complain about  non-direction in relation  to a statement,  the truth of which he had himself  asked the jury to accept.  The judge’s direction to the jury in light of  the DPP v  Christie (6) and the other kindred cases was not a fatal flaw.
(4)    There was no material on which the jury could have found that the appellant was provoked to lose his self-control, taking the evidence in the light most favourable to the appellant.

At the hearing of the appeal, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr W G  Edwards represented the State. Justice Massiah, who later  became Chancellor, delivered  the main judgment of the Appeal Court.
Giving a background to the affair, Justice Massiah said the appellant (Dennan), who was a ‘hire-car driver’, and Folkard became acquainted with each other about 14 months before her death. Their friendship became intimate and they began living together, sharing a room in his mother’s home at West Ruimveldt Housing Scheme, Georgetown.  Their relationship turned sour when, according to the appellant, he surprised her and his father having sexual intercourse.  Such an allegation, if untrue, Justice Massiah said, would be a shameful one to make, and that if true, it must have caused the appellant  considerable  anguish.   So scandalized was the appellant, Massiah said, that he decided to end the relationship.
According to the judge, Dennan claimed that Folkard would have none of this;  she began to molest him whenever thy chanced to meet.
Before dismissing the appeal and affirming the conviction and death sentence, Justice Massiah said: “In my judgment, the prosecution discharged the onus of proving absence  of provocation in the matter under instant  consideration, and there is nothing about which the appellant  can justifiably complain.  The submissions made on his behalf on this issue accordingly fail.