Murder case against San Fernando man quashed

A High Court judge has quashed the murder indictment against a San Fernando man, ruling that the sole evidence linking him to the killing of a taxi driver was inadmissible.

Justice Nalini Singh delivered the decision at the San Fernando High Court, finding that blurred CCTV footage and the purported recognition testimony of a woman police constable could not safely be put before a jury.

Keston Doughty had been indicted, along with another man, for the murder of taxi driver Anthony Andrews on March 20, 2023, during a robbery in Pleasantville.

According to the prosecution, Andrews was fatally shot after two men posing as passengers staged a hold-up in his white Suzuki Swift taxi, robbing a passenger of $3,000 and an iPhone valued at $7,000. Prosecutors argued that CCTV footage showed Doughty entering the vehicle, with the police officer later claiming she recognised him from prior encounters during an unrelated robbery investigation.

Defence attorneys Shane Patience and Shaunelle Hamilton, of the Public Defenders Department, contended the evidence was unreliable. They pointed to the poor quality of the recording and the limited nature of the officer’s prior contact with Doughty. They argued that the recognition amounted to little more than an assertion, with no clear description of facial features and no corroborating evidence.

In her ruling, Singh agreed, stating that the footage was “blurred and indistinct throughout” and that the officer’s testimony lacked the necessary evidential foundation. “Her recognition evidence cannot meet the threshold of admissibility,” Singh wrote. “To hold otherwise would permit any police officer with limited and unexplained exposure to an accused to assert recognition without a proper evidential foundation.”

The judge further ruled that the photographs and video stills carried a high risk of unfair prejudice, as jurors might wrongly view them as objective proof despite their poor clarity. “The probative value of the footage is negligible,” she held. “The risk of unfair prejudice is substantial.”

“Here, the only evidence linking the accused to the offence is the assertion of recognition from CCTV footage. WPC James-Ragoonanan’s familiarity with the accused is not in issue, but the imagery upon which her recognition depends is blurred and indistinct.

“There are no moments of clarity, no distinctive clothing features, and no corroborative strands of circumstantial evidence. The CCTV footage is blurred and indistinct, so it is not ‘sufficiently clear’.

“To allow such material to be placed before the jury would be to abdicate the very filtering role described in these cases.

“This identification evidence is therefore inadmissible as it fails to meet the criteria for admissibility… Further, on balance, the evidence is also excluded as more prejudicial than probative in the overriding interests of fairness.”

Without admissible identification evidence, Singh concluded, the indictment against Doughty could not stand. “This is precisely the exceptional case in which the court must intervene to prevent a trial proceeding on an unsustainable evidential basis,” she stated before ordering the indictment quashed.

Maria Lyons -Edwards represented the state.