CCJ frees stepfather, mother to now serve 30-year sentence

Aug 20, 2022 News

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Neesa Gopaul’s murder…

Kaieteur News – The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Friday overturned the conviction and 45-year prison sentence of murdered teenager, Neesa Gopaul’s stepfather, Jarvis Small calling the evidence proffered against him in the lower courts “greatly prejudiced”.  This means that Small is freed of the 2010 murder, some eight years after he was found guilty of the crime. The Court, however, upheld the guilty verdict but reduced further the 45 years sentence for the girl’s mother, Bibi Shareema-Gopaul called ‘Nari’ to 30 years, ordering that she will be eligible for parole not before 15 years. Gopaul, 50, had been jointly charged with her , Jarvis Small called ‘Barry’, 44, for the murder of her teenage daughter.

The duo was initially sentenced to 106 and 96 years’ imprisonment respectively after they were found guilty unanimously of the teen’s murder following a trial before Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court in March 2015.  Since then, the two have filed appeals against their convictions and sentences.

In delivering a summary of the majority judgment on Friday, CCJ’s Justice Denys Barrow said that the case against Small should have been dismissed since there was no case for him to answer due to the lack of evidence.

The court also agreed with the contentions of Small’s Attorney, Nigel Hughes that he should have been tried separately at the High Court since the evidence led in the trial was “greatly prejudiced” against him.

He noted that there were three pieces of evidence proffered to tie him to the crime – reports that he had sexually assaulted Neesa, a pair of dumbbells that reportedly belonged to him found at the scene of the murder, and a statement by Small that he did not murder Neesa but he knew who did.

The CCJ rejected the State’s argument that the report of sexual assault was motive enough for Small to want to kill his teenage stepdaughter.  The court dismissed the argument as “pure speculation.”  With regard to the dumbbells, the court found that there was no evidence to show that Small had a hand in tying the dumbbells to the suitcase found with the body at the scene of the crime.

In relation to Small’s statement that he knew who killed Neesa, the court found that it was impossible to conclude that because he said he knew of the killing, he was the killer. The CCJ found also some serious investigative flaws and noted that other supportive evidence was weak or equitable in the case.

The judge noted that Small should not have been convicted on the strength of the testimony of Prosecution star witness Simone DeNobrega since what she had to say related to Gopaul.

DeNobrega had testified that Gopaul confided in her that she had an extramarital affair with Small and that he encouraged her to poison her husband. She claimed that Gopaul told her that her teenage daughter found out about the poisoning, reported it to the police, and was planning on following up on the report. As a result of a desperate attempt to cover up the crime, DeNobrega testified that Gopaul told her that she and her lover planned to get rid of her daughter. She claimed that the woman told her she and Small took her daughter to the Soesdyke-Linden Highway where Small attempted to strangle Neesa with a rope as her younger daughter was sleeping.

She claimed that the mother was driving the car at the time, stopped in a trail where Small dragged her out of the car and bludgeoned her on the head with a piece of wood. She claimed that Small then placed Neesa’s body in the trunk of the car and they left the scene of the crime. The body was then left overnight in the trunk at Gopaul’s home.

It was revealed too that Gopaul said that on the advice of Small, she took from her home, personal items belonging to Neesa such as her bank book, passport, a Muslim robe, and suitcase to make it look like Neesa had run away. She and Small also took a pair of dumbbells that Small had given her and a length of decorative rope to attach the weights to the suitcase in which they would place the body to keep it submerged. They returned to the scene of the crime and placed the body in the suitcase along with the personal items, they submerged it into a creek by weighing it down with the dumbbells and robe.

On October 2, 2010, the partially decomposed body of the teenager who attended Queen’s College was found stuffed into a suitcase, which was anchored in a creek with several dumbbells at the Emerald Tower Resort at Madewini, Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

In delivering the judgment summary, Justice Barrow said the court had rejected the argument that the jury was not adequately warned about DeNobrega’s testimony and that this rendered Gopaul’s conviction “unsafe” since there was no other material evidence tying her to the crime.  The judge pointed out, among other things, that the 106 years sentence imposed by Justice Singh on Gopaul in the High Court was manifestly excessive since it exceeded the life expectancy of any human being.

The CCJ judge said that the court found too that the reduction of her sentence granted by the Court of Appeal could be taken further, hence the CCJ granted a second reduction bringing the sentence to 30 years.

At the CCJ, the bench is comprised of President Justice Adrian Saunders and CCJ Judges Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Jacob Wit, Denys Barrow, and Peter Jamadar. Attorneys-at-Law Ronald Daniels also represented Small while Shareema-Gopaul was represented by Attorney-at-Law Arudranauth Gossai. Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Senior Counsel Shalimar Ali-Hack, appeared on behalf of the State of Guyana.

During the CCJ trial, the lawyers arguing on behalf of Gopaul and her former lover raised contentions over what they termed “prejudicial evidence” that led to the trial against their clients.

Attorneys for both Gopaul and Small claimed that the trial judge erred and misdirected the jury on several issues brought out in the trial including the evidence led by the DeNobrega, who shared a lock-up cell with Gopaul.

Small’s Attorney (Hughes) spoke of inadmissible evidence which was used to convict his client. Hughes told the panel of CCJ judges that an injustice was carried out against his client by having the prejudicial evidence of DeNobrega, the prosecution’s main witness, admitted in a single trial for both persons.

Hughes and his team also raised an issue with DeNobrega’s credibility, arguing that she could not be trusted nor taken at her word since she herself had been in the lock-up for fraud.

But Ali-Hack submitted that there was no miscarriage of justice. She urged the CCJ to consider that even without DeNobrega’s testimony, there was other circumstantial evidence that links Shareema Gopaul and her co-accused to the crime.

The DPP had repeatedly implored the CCJ to uphold the convictions and sentence.

She said, “This was a very serious case. It concerned a mother betraying her [daughter’s] trust with her lover killing… The daughter was sexually molested by that lover and later suffered a brutal murder…” the DPP said.

However, the President of the CCJ Justice Saunders was among the presiding judges who disagreed with the points proffered by the DPP. The CCJ judges noted in the absence of proper evidence, particularly against Small, the jury could not have logically found him guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

“It is unfortunate that there was not any serious forensic evidence to provide proof as to who committed this crime…” Justice Saunders had said.

 

 

 

 

 

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