IN 1960 murder accused Jimmy Weeks was convicted by the jury by means of an alleged confession statement and was sentenced to death by the trial judge.But on appeal to the Federal Supreme Court in its Criminal Jurisdiction found that the confession statement was used in circumstances that amounted to the acceptance of inadmissible evidence.

The Appellate Court comprising Justices of Appeal Rennie, Archer and Wylie, allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.
The appeal rested on the question of a conflict between two police constables over a confession statement which was decided on a note said to be made in the occurrence book by one of the constables, but which evidence was described by the Federal Supreme Court as inadmissible.

Facts of the case disclosed that during the trial of jimmy Weeks for murder, two police constables gave evidence of a confession said to have been made by him (the accused).
There was a conflict between the evidence of the two constables and a note made in the Occurrence Book by one of the constables was put in evidence in support of his version of the confession.
The defence was at variance with the alleged confession.
The Federal Supreme Court held that the Occurrence Book was inadmissible in evidence.
Appeal allowed. New trial ordered.

Jimmy Weeks had appealed against conviction of murder by the Supreme Court of British Guiana.
Lawyer J.O.F. Haynes had appeared for the appellant while Solicitor General W.G. Persaud appeared for the Crown.
The judgment of the Federal Supreme Court was delivered by Justice of Appeal Archer.
Delivering the judgment, Justice Archer pointed out that the appellant was convicted of the murder of Ismay Algoo.
The deceased came to her death from injuries received at her home about 2.30 p.m. on August 20, 1959. 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 there dealt her a blow upon her head with an axe.
At the trial two eye witnesses to the alleged attack with the axe were put forward. They were the deceased’s two sisters who lived nearby but there were no eye witnesses to the alleged attack with the razor.
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 had told him that he and his reputed wife, Betty Algoo had had domestic problems and he had cut her with a razor and believed she was dead and was trying to cut his neck with a razor.
Another police constable who was at the station when the appellant went there said that he was at the inquiries office when he heard the appellant speak to the inquiries officer saying that he had just killed Betty Algoo and that he had a wound on the left side of his neck. The inquiries officer asked him what was wrong with his neck, and he said that he was trying to kill himself because Betty Algoo had ruined his life.
According to Justice Archer, the appellant in an unsworn statement from the dock said that the deceased had attacked him with a razor and a struggle had ensued in the bedroom. She attempted to run into the kitchen and he tried to hold her back but she fell and hit her head on the axe.
This statement, the judge said, was at variance with his alleged admissions to the police at the inquiries office and the discrepancies between the evidence of the two police constables 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 that he had made and addressed the jury upon it.
It was submitted for the appellant that the Occurrence Book was inadmissible in evidence. The 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 has 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.
Justice Archer added: “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.”
Written By George Barclay