FOLLOWING a decision by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to appeal the four-year sentence handed down to Dennis “Gin Sing” Mundell — the first person to be punished under the 2022 Firearms Act — the Court of Appeal on Friday ruled that he should be retried.

Mundell, of a Spanish Town Road address, was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of murder but was later hit with firearms charges. The then 28-year-old pleaded guilty and was handed the 51-month sentence in the Gun Court in February 2023 by sentencing judge, Justice Calys Wiltshire.

However, in a news release after the sentencing the ODPP said, “Upon further consultation and review of the Act and the specific facts of this case the office has formed the considered view that the interest of justice may be best served if a review and appeal of the sentence of four years and three months’ imprisonment is pursued in the Court of Appeal.”

The ODPP, in oral arguments before Appeal Court judges, “acknowledged that the indictment was incorrectly drafted under the non-existent Section 45 (2)(a)”.

“The learned DPP submitted that the indictment should have been drafted pursuant to Section 45(1)(a). On the contrary view, the indictment should have been drafted under Section 5(1) of the Firearms Act, 2022. It was the learned DPP’s position that whether the indictment was drafted under Section 5 or 45, either offence would attract a mandatory minimum sentence,” the Appeal Court said Friday.

According to the ODPP, though the Firearms Act, 2022, having been recently promulgated, was the subject of various interpretations, the learned judge erred in imposing the sentences as the legislation stipulates “a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment”. In inviting the court to set aside the sentences Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn made the suggestion that the matter be remitted to the High Court Division of the Gun Court for a retrial.

On Friday, in allowing the appeal, the court ruled that the convictions be quashed, the sentences of four years and three months’ imprisonment imposed on count one for unauthorised possession of firearm, and four years and three months’ imposed on count two for unauthorised possession of ammunition quashed, and the case remitted to the High Court Division of the Gun Court for the appropriate charges to be determined and laid against the respondent.

“By the passage of the Firearms Act, 2022 the legislature clearly intended to usher in a new penalty regime for the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, amongst other things. A hallmark of this dispensation is the introduction of prescribed mandatory minimum penalties for the possession of unauthorised and prohibited firearms. That statutory scheme necessarily signalled a curtailment, at the low end, and the abolition at the high end, of the previously enjoyed judicial discretion to decide the type of sentences and, where a custodial sentence was considered appropriate, its duration,” the court noted.

“Against this background the learned judge fell into error when she held that the discretion she enjoyed prior to the promulgation of the Firearms Act, 2022 subsisted. The learned judge did not have the power to impose the sentences she did. Further, in light of the new statutory minima, the sentences imposed were manifestly inadequate or unduly lenient. Consequently, the sentences must be quashed,” the Appeal Court said. Furthermore, it ruled that the conviction must also be quashed in the interest of justice.

In the facts unveiled before the court the police, in December 2022, acting on information, went to a particular lot number and announced their presence. Getting no response from the occupants the police broke down the door and entered. Mundell and a female were seen inside the home. Mundell identified himself to the police and stated that he resided at the address. The female also identified herself but asserted that she was an overnight visitor to those premises.

The police searched the home in the presence of both occupants and found on the floor, underneath a sofa, a black Glock pistol containing a magazine loaded with 17 unexpended rounds of ammunition, along with another magazine which had three unexpended rounds.

Mundell, in admitting that he did not have a licence to possess the firearm and ammunition, disclosed that he had purchased the firearm for $380,000 and had placed it under the sofa when he became aware of the presence of the police.