IN a murder case in 1968, without mitigating circumstances, the accused, Kissoon Wazar Alli, who threatened to kill his wife then stabbed her to death, was at his trial permitted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter.

Following the plea, the trial judge imposed a penalty of 10 years imprisonment, which sentence the accused appealed on the grounds that it was excessive. But the Court of Appeal noted that the circumstances of the case did not justify the trial judge to accept the lesser count.
That Court, constituted by Chancellor EV Luckkhoo, and Justices of Appeal Guya Persaud and PA Cummings, dismissed the appeal and denied the appellant the right to appeal against sentence.
The conviction and sentence were affirmed.
The facts of the case disclosed that Alli was indicted for murder, but following the Crown’s willingness to accept a plea to the lesser count of manslaughter, the trial judge permitted this to be done, although on the depositions, there was no indication of any circumstance to justify the acceptance of such a plea.
The appellant was thus sentenced to ten years imprisonment. In his plea in mitigation, his counsel, Mr Bernard De Santos, SC, said, inter alia, that the appellant had suffered great mental anguish.
Alli appealed on the grounds that the trial judge had made no allowance in his sentence for the fact that he had pleaded guilty, and had not contested any issue before the court.
The Appellate Court held:
(i) (per Luckhoo and Persaud, J.J.A.) a plea of guilty does not necessarily mean that the prisoner genuinely regrets his act;
(ii) if a sentence appears to be proper and appropriate , it matters not that something was taken into account which ought not to have been, or something was taken into account which ought to have been.
(iii) on the facts as appeared in the depositions, there was little, if anything, to mitigate the crime which had been committed , and in any event, if there was remorse, the judge’s memorandum of sentence showed that he must have had it in mind; and
(iv) (per Cummings J. A. ) the trial judge did not take into account several facts which he ought to have taken cognizance of, including the plea of guilty to manslaughter, but in an appeal against sentence, the court is called upon to exercise a discretion and in so doing must have regard to all the circumstances.
Delivering his judgment, Chancellor Luckhoo noted that there was an application in the appeal for leave to appeal against sentence on the grounds that the learned trial judge failed to give adequate consideration to the appellant’s plea of guilty to manslaughter; that he was on a charge of murder when the court, following the Crown’s willingness to accept that plea, permitted this to be done.
Said the Chancellor: “The appellant was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for what could well be described as a bestial and dastardly act in stabbing his reputed wife at least twice with a knife, which must have been at least one and a half inches in diameter, in the region of her heart and liver, puncturing the apex of the left ventricle , and the lobe of the liver.”
According to the Chancellor, the learned trial judge, on the authority of R. v. Soanes, [1948] 32 C.A.R. 136, would have been entitled to refuse to allow the appellant to plead guilty to manslaughter, because there was no indication on the deposition that circumstances existed to justify the acceptance of that plea. In other words, no evidence appeared on the record from which it could be said that the deceased had done any act to the appellant, which would, and did, cause in him a sudden and temporary loss of self-control, rendering him so subject to passion as to make him for the moment not master of his mind.
The Chancellor went on to explain that in this instance, Alli, the appellant, had gone for lunch at his mother-in-law’s, during which time he had imbibed a certain quantity of drinks. According to the evidence, the Chancellor said, three persons drank a quarter bottle of rum, and that after having his lunch, Alli returned to his home with his wife and children. “Seupallie (this is the mother-in-law) was on her verandah not far from the appellant’s home when she heard talking. Presumably there was a quarrel,” the Chancellor said, adding: “She then saw her daughter go out on her own verandah, and the appellant followed her saying that he was going to kill her. Whereupon she said to him: ‘Kill me nah!’ He then plunged a knife into her body, which Seupallie saw used more than once. Soon after, the daughter fell to the floor and died. Seupallie shouted for help, and one Paul Benjamin and another went to the scene.”
According to the Chancellor, there was no evidence that the appellant’s wife had in any way provoked this grave attack on her. “Paul Benjamin admitted that he took a piece of wood and struck the appellant on his head for the purpose of disarming him, because at that point of time, he had a cutlass in his hand.
“The appellant gave up the cutlass and the knife and told people about the place; that he had killed his wife; and that he wanted to be taken to the police station. At the police station, he repeated that statement — that he had killed h wife. He made a written statement to the police in which he said: ‘Ah stab she wid de knife pun she left side, because Paul Benjamin, she brother, lash me wid a bellnah pon me head.’ Paul Benjamin, on the evidence at the preliminary inquiry , was not in the appellant’s home at the time when he stabbed his wife. He went there afterwards.”
Continuing with his judgment, the Chancellor then asked: “In that setting, then, can this court say that the sentence of 10 years was excessive? Or was it not an appropriate sentence? Quoting Lord Denning in his memorandum to the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, the Chancellor said by way of defining the word punishment:
“Punishment is the way in which society expresses its denunciation of wrongdoing, and in order to maintain respect for the law, it is essential that the punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them.”
Justice Persaud readily concurred.