Appeal Court Upholds Conviction In VG Shooting

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BVI Platinum News

(PLTM) - The Court of Appeal has upheld the conviction of Jevone ‘Bugsy’ Demming, who along with Sherman Williams was jointly tried and convicted for the 2012 attempted murder of Neil St. Rose.

The incident occurred at a café on Virgin Gorda on September 30, 2012 and left St. Rose, a St. Lucian native, hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds.

Following a High Court trial, Justice Nicole Byer sentenced Demming and Williams to 15 and 7 years imprisonment on February 2, 2015. All of the sentences run concurrently.

Demming appealed against his conviction on the ground that the trial judge misdirected the jury on the law of joint enterprise thus rendering his conviction unsafe and unsatisfactory.

The main issues which arose in this appeal were whether the relevant law on joint enterprise in the Virgin Islands is governed by the common law or by the BVI Criminal Code 1997 and whether the learned judge erred in her direction on the requisite mental element of a secondary party to a joint enterprise.

Justice of Appeal Louise Esther Blenman in a written judgement last week pointed out that critically, the evidence adduced in support of the Crown’s case was cogent and overwhelming.

“I am fortified in my view on the evidence that Mr. Williams had removed the gun from his waist, cranked it and fired shots before approaching Mr. St. Rose and firing the gun at him. It is clear that Mr. Demming was part of the unlawful joint enterprise,” Justice Blenman concluded.

According to the Justice, the evidence plainly suggests that Mr. Demming had knowledge of the gun being in possession of Mr. Williams and being used by Mr. Williams and reasonably ought to have foreseen that Mr. Williams would have used the gun to attempt to murder Mr. St. Rose.

“Indeed, in the circumstances, the attempted murder of Mr. St. Rose was a probable consequence of the unlawful joint enterprise, applying the standard of foresight expressed in section 20 of the Criminal Code. Accordingly, in my view, the jury would have inevitably convicted Mr. Demming as the evidence suggests that he not only knew that Mr. Williams had a gun, but also that he reasonably ought to have contemplated that the gun would have been used in the altercation,” Justice Blenman stated.

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