Man freed of murder after 21 years: Justice system ‘hell and failure’

AFTER spending over two decades in prison and enduring three trials, McDonald Bailey walked free from the Port of Spain High Court on January 29, describing the justice system as “hell and failure.”

Bailey, along with co-accused Keon Anthony and Garreth Wiseman, was charged with the 2003 murder of 19-year-old Meshach Samuel in River Estate, Diego Martin.

However, Justice Maria Busby Earle-Caddle ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove its case, directing the jury to return not-guilty verdicts on the three.

Only Bailey and Anthony were lucky enough to walk out of the Hall of Justice, Port of Spain, with relatives after Earle-Caddle’s ruling. Wiseman remains in prison, awaiting trial for the murder of special prosecutor Dana Seetahal, SC.

Speaking outside the courthouse, Bailey expressed his frustration at having spent 21 years behind bars for a crime he insists he did not commit.

“The system is a failure. No witness… just in jail. Innocent for 21 years,” he lamented. He urged authorities to do better.

“A man should stay in jail for two years, not 21 years,” Bailey said, adding that there were “plenty more in jail.” “Some prisoners for 20 years, 18 years.”

His acquittal came after his attorneys – Larry Williams, Russell Warner, Chelsea John, Toni Roberts and Adam Roberts – successfully argued that the prosecution’s case was weak.

Earle-Caddle ruled the identification evidence was insufficient.

“The case against them has not been made out,” she said.

She specified that while it was clear a murder had been committed, the State had failed to prove who was responsible. She said none of the eyewitnesses identified the accused in court, nor was there any supporting evidence from previous police confrontations or identification parades.

She also said there was no other evidence to support the State’s case that the three were the perpetrators.

“A case that does not pass the evidential stage should not proceed,” she said.

She also reminded prosecutors that, as ministers of justice, they must have the confidence and flexibility to “do the right thing” when the evidence is lacking, quoting from the Code for Prosecutors.

Bailey and Wiseman were arrested shortly after the 2003 murder. Anthony was held nearly a year later. Their first trial, in 2008, ended without a unanimous jury verdict. A retrial in 2016 was aborted when Anthony contracted tuberculosis in prison, leading to his losing a lung, two ribs, and most of his teeth.

Despite being granted $500,000 bail in 2022, after the landmark Appeal Court ruling that allowed murder accused to apply for bail, Anthony remained on remand until his acquittal.

The trial began earlier in January and six witnesses gave evidence in person before the prosecution closed its case on January 24.

Samuel, 19, was killed on December 10, 2003, by four men on his way to a parlour opposite his home at River Estate.

It was the State’s case that witnesses, including Samuel’s sister and a PH-taxi driver, saw four men running from the scene of the shooting with guns.

Witnesses called the names Bailey (and General Bailey), Reddo and Ratty.

At the trial, one of the witnesses admitted Samuel’s friends had forced him to call those names.