PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Thursday upheld the decision of the Barbados Court of Appeal and dismissed a plea of self-defence by Troy Stanford in the 2008 murder of mini-bus conductor.

In its ruling, the CCJ, which is the island’s final court, also dismissed the notion that the trial judge failed to direct the jury on the issue of self-defence based on the evidence presented.

“Where self-defence is in issue, the state of mind of the accused is important. The accused is in those circumstances always best placed to assist the jury as to whether he was acting in self-defence. We recognise however that the accused has no obligation to provide that assistance and his failure to do so cannot be held against him.

“But if, as in this case, the accused gives no evidence whatsoever of self-defence, electing to give evidence entirely and thus rely completely on the defence of accident) and if there is no material in his statements from which it can reasonably be inferred that he was or may have been acting in defence of himself or someone else, then the judge must examine the remainder of the evidence to see whether the issue of self-defence reasonably arises,” the CCJ ruled.

Stanford had been accused of murdering Matthew Joseph on June 15, 2008, following an altercation.

The trial judge had directed the jury on the defences of “accident” and “provocation”.

Stanford, who pleaded not guilty when his trial began in 2011, was convicted of manslaughter and appealed to the Court of Appeal of Barbados. He argued that there was sufficient evidence to direct the jury on “self-defence” and the trial judge had failed to do so.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and held that the trial judge was right not to have directed the jury on self-defence.

In their arguments before the CCJ, Stanford’ attorneys Larry A C Smith and Safiya A Moore, said that the trial judge had an obligation to direct the jury on any defence which arose on the evidence of the matter, which he purports includes that of self-defence.

But the five-panel CCJ judges noted that the law required an act of self-defence to be “the deliberate yet reasonable result of an accused’s honest belief that he or another person was under imminent attack”.

The CCJ ruled that Stanford’s decision to shoot Joseph was neither prompted by fear of an attack on himself nor was it reasonable in the circumstances.

The CCJ also advised that the issue of defences is to be best answered by the trial judge who has heard the evidence, and determining whether there is evidence sufficiently strong to raise a bona fide case of self-defence.

The State was represented by attorneys Alliston Seale and Oliver Thomas.