ONEIL Barrett, the detective constable who in January last year lost his bid to have his 2020 conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice overturned, has suffered a double whammy after the Appeal Court on Friday tossed his application to take that ruling to the London-based Privy Council.

“Based on our consideration of the relevant statutes and authorities, we have determined that the questions identified cannot sustain the application for leave to appeal to the Privy Council in the circumstances of the case at bar,” the Appeal Court said in a ruling handed down on Friday.

It said Barrett has “failed to satisfy the requirements of Section 35 of the Judicature (Appellate Jurisdiction) Act – JAJA for the grant of leave to the Privy Council, as the constitutional point of law proposed to be argued was not involved in the decision of the court and the remaining points of law are not of exceptional public importance”.

“We, therefore, make the following order: The applicant’s amended notice of motion for conditional leave to appeal to the Privy Council, filed on 21 November 2023, is refused,” the Appeal Court judges said.

In referencing the 2023 decision overturning the initial appeal, the panel said “indeed, this court in its judgment found that his right to appeal had ceased and determined. Based on the statutory requirements as set out above, the applicant would face an insurmountable hurdle to argue on a further appeal that the court was not correct in its determination”.

Furthermore, it said, “as a condition precedent to obtaining leave to appeal to the Privy Council, a valid right of appeal must have existed before this court.

“The applicant not having had a right of appeal to this court under Section 22 of the JAJA, by virtue of his non-compliance with the Judicature (Parish Courts) (Amendment) Act–JPCA, it may be argued that he cannot now be vested with the right to seek leave to appeal to the Privy Council,” the judges said further.

In the facts outlined to the court by the prosecution during the original trial, Barrett had been assigned along with another detective corporal to investigate the murder of a recording artiste who was killed in November 2016 in St Catherine. During those investigations, they became aware of a potential witness and located and interviewed the individual. According to the cops, the witness had information that would have been crucial to their investigations. However, Barrett testified that the witness was uncooperative and demanded a payment of $30,000 (which the learned judge viewed as a bribe) to give a statement or sign a statement she had given. Barrett after this spoke with several members of the deceased’s family, including a sister who resided overseas and had several conversations with her on WhatsApp about the payment of the $30,000 to the witness. The messages which were admitted into evidence showed that he made several attempts to have her send the money to him. Barrett asserted that once he paid the $30,000 to the witness, he would be able to get the statement (or have the witness sign the statement she had given) so that he could question and ultimately charge a suspect who was detained at the time. However, the sibling was advised to do nothing of the sort. Subsequently, she reported the matter to the police.

Following a probe by the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency on October 9, 2018, Barrett was arrested and charged with the offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced.

Barrett, after his conviction and sentence, however, filed a notice of appeal on December 17, 2020. That appeal was heard in March 2022. The judges, however, noted that during the preparation of the judgement, it appeared that, “there were certain anomalies in the record, as well as in the written submissions that were made on behalf of Barrett and the Crown in respect of the date he was sentenced”.

According to the judges at the time, in not being able to determine from the documents whether Barrett had given verbal notice of appeal before filing his written notice, they closely scrutinised the court’s file, as the endorsements on the copies of the indictment and the information and the date stamp on the notice of appeal were not very legible.

The judges said they then obtained certified copies of the court sheets on the various days the matter was before the St Catherine Parish Court, as well as an affidavit from the learned judge who presided over the trial where it became “apparent from those documents that Mr Barrett’s right of appeal had ceased and determined, so that when we heard the matter, there was no existing appeal before this court”.

The judges said having invited the Crown and the attorney for Barrett to make further submissions in November, Barrett’s attorney conceded that “there was no appeal.”

In ruling against what it described as a “purported appeal”, the court further noted that the learned judge adopted an “erroneous approach on March 6, 2020 when she imposed a fine and then extended Mr Barrett’s bail to return to court to pay the fine”. According to the Appeal Court, “several subsequent occurrences compounded this error”.