LINDENER Calvin Thomas, called Calvin Bailey, who allegedly murdered 18-month-old Shaquan Nero in 2007, while the child was in his mother’s arms, was yesterday the recipient of a second jury disagreement.

Minutes after Justice Navindra Singh ordered the accused to face retrial at a subsequent criminal session of the Demerara assizes, defence counsel George Thomas, alleging it was the practice for the DPP to set free accused persons on whose fate the jury had twice disagreed, was at the Supreme Court Registry seeking to file a motion with the hope of so facilitating his client.
Senior prosecutrix, Mrs. Teshana Lake had purportedly led evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt the prosecution’s case that the accused had unlawfully killed the child because the child’s mother, Ms. Bernadette Nero, had decided to end a relationship he had shared with her.
The child’s fatal stabbing in the neck had occurred between April 4 and 5, 2007, when Ms Nero was allegedly under attack by the accused, who was said to be armed with a sharp pointed cutlass. When she had fallen, being wounded, the accused had allegedly proceeded to fire stabs at her, thereby twice injuring the child in the neck, resulting in the baby boy’s death.
In an unsworn statement from the dock at his retrial, the accused had stated that he had taken the child away from the mother on the day in question, and was attempting to move away with it when the mother, who was attacking him with a knife, unwittingly injured her son; but prosecutrix Lake dubbed that defence a ‘nancy’ story, and declared that the prosecution evidence was clear, cogent, overwhelming, and compelling.
Justice Navindra Singh directed the jury on the law, and expressed certain opinions on the facts, which he told the jury they were entitled to reject, since they were the judges of the facts. He had pointed out that the prosecution’s case had left no room for self-defence, provocation, or accident.
Taking two hours to reach a verdict of disagreement, the jury told the judge that no useful purpose would be served by giving them further directions. The foreman told the court that the verdict of disagreement was in the proportion of 11 to one.