Cornelius Robinson, the prominent Westmoreland businessman who in 2015 strangled to death a 14-year-old, whom he had impregnated, and dumped her body under a bridge outside her school, on Friday lost his appeal to have his time behind bars lowered.

The former fashion designer and photo studio operator, who had pleaded guilty to murder some days after the gruesome discovery of Santoya Campbell’s body, had been sentenced to life in the Westmoreland Circuit Court in February that same year by Justice Martin Gayle.

The court, at that time, had ordered that the married businessman and father would become eligible for parole only after spending 25 years behind bars. An application to appeal filed in 2020 was refused by a single judge. Robinson, however, renewed the application last month and was successful in having it heard.

Attorney for the convicted man, Lambert S Johnson, argued that the court had not given his client a sufficient discount when he was being sentenced, given the fact that he had made an exceptionally early guilty plea, had an excellent police antecedent report (meaning no previous convictions) and was “very remorseful”.

In arguing that the sentence handed down to Robinson had been “manifestly excessive”, the attorney charged that the judge had not taken those three factors into sufficient account. As such, he contended that the period of eligibility before parole for his client should be reduced to 18 years, down from the 25 years.

However, the Crown, represented by Assistant Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Natallie Malcolm, assisted by junior Domonique Martin rebutted those arguments while pointing out that the aggravating factors of the murder far outweighed the mitigating factors. Prosecutors insisted that were the court to accede to Johnson’s request and reduce the sentence it would shock the public’s conscience. Further, the Crown said the only discount from which Robinson should benefit was the 21 days he had spent in custody awaiting trial.

Malcolm, in driving home the point, told the Court that this was one of the worst ways in which a 14-year-old could lose her life.

Subsequently, the court ordered that the sentence be reduced only by the 21 days Robinson spent in custody, making it so that the sentence of life imprisonment with 25 years before eligibility for parole be substituted with life imprisonment without eligibility for parole until he has served 24 years, 11 months and 10 days.

According to the facts of the case, which caused much public anger, Santoya had left her home on January 26, 2015 for school at Frome Technical High, where she was a grade eight student. When she did not return home a missing person’s report was filed.

Her body was discovered a day later in garbage bags under the Cabarita River bridge, close to her school. Her hands and feet were bound.

Robinson, who was among the persons of interest interviewed by the police, had initially said he knew the child and her mother but denied knowing her whereabouts. He, however, changed his tune after the investigation uncovered blood on the spoiler of his motor vehicle.

In a question and answer session with his attorney present on January 29, 2015, the businessman confessed to having killed the child and indicated that he had in fact seen her the day she went missing. He said the student, who had visited his business place three to four times monthly for lunch money — based on an agreement between her mother and him — had, on the day in question, approached him for money to purchase a phone. He claimed that although he had known Santoya from 2007, he had intercourse with her only once, in 2014.

He claimed that he had killed her because of “frustration and blackmail”. According to Robinson, the young girl had threatened to expose him to his wife and so he strangled her with his hands. He told the police that he was the one to deposit her body under the bridge later that night, after keeping her corpse in his office all day.

A post-mortem report revealed that the child died from asphyxia due to suffocation.

Justice Gayle, in handing down the original sentence, had told the then 37-year-old Robinson, who is the father of one child, that he took two young lives — Santoya’s and the unborn foetus.

In the days following the discovery, residents of Logwood community swarmed a Jamaica Observer news team, which had visited the area, saying they were convinced from the onset that Robinson was guilty of the student’s murder. They claimed that the day she went missing Robinson, who had visited his mother’s house — close to where Santoya lived — stared blankly instead of joining the crowd which had been searching for the body.