THE Court of Appeal on Friday gave its reasons for upholding the sentence and conviction of the former forklift operator who is serving life for clubbing a senior citizen to death before dismembering, burning and leaving her remains on Thetford Farm in Old Harbour, only to later put on a charade of grief and join searches to locate her.

The victim, Louise Barnes, was last seen alive on September 30, 2009, when she left her home in St Thomas to visit her Wellside Lane property where the convicted man, Clifton Harrison — who was at the time employed as the caretaker — lived. On October 2, 2009 the Old Harbour police received information that led them to Thetford Farm in Old Harbour where they discovered burnt human remains, with parts of both legs and arms lying separately from the rest of the body. The cause of death for the corpse, which was at that point unidentified, was, in the opinion of the pathologist due to blunt force injury to the head.

Concerned relatives of Barnes on October 12 lodged a missing person report with the police, who visited the Wellside Lane property where they noticed a bed in one of the rooms without a mattress. Harrison told the police that Barnes had instructed him to burn the mattress as it was infested with “chinks” (bed bugs). He also told the police that Barnes had visited the house and had left on 25 September 2009 to Kingston en route to St Thomas, and he had not seen her since. Forensic analysis of the dwelling, however, revealed blood stains. Further tests showed that the burnt remains found at Thetford Farm were those of Barnes and that she had been injured in the house at the Wellside Lane property.

Harrison was convicted on January 27, 2017, following a trial lasting several days before Justice David Fraser and a jury for the murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the stipulation that he serves 32 years before becoming eligible for parole.

In pronouncing the sentence, the judge said that it was a “particularly gruesome case”. That description rested on the fact that death resulted from being bludgeoned at the back of the head, dismembered and burnt. The judge also noted that the murder was the ultimate breach of trust and further compounded by a heartless charade of pretending to help to locate Barnes, thereby giving the bereaved false hope of finding Miss Barnes alive.

Harrison lost an initial appeal against his sentence and conviction in May 2020. A renewed application was made in 2021 at which point the judges reserved their decision.

On Friday, Appeal Court judges, having arrived at their decision, dismissed Harrison’s application to appeal his sentence and conviction.

In their conclusion the judges declared that “the evidence presented against [Harrison] at the trial was overwhelming”.

“The learned judge gave unimpeachable directions to the jury. The jury’s verdict of guilty, which followed, is supported by the breadth and depth of the evidence placed before them, making the conviction both safe and satisfactory. In our view, a consideration of the submissions made on behalf of the applicant left the jury’s verdict unshakeable. The application for leave to appeal against the conviction should therefore be refused,” the court held.

Furthermore it said, “the circumstances in which Miss Barnes was killed and her body desecrated warranted the imposition of the sentence of imprisonment for life. The learned judge’s recommendation of the sentence to be served before the applicant becomes eligible for parole was eminently justifiable. Accordingly, it should not be disturbed”.