Derek Achong

A vet­er­an at­tor­ney who or­dered a hit on his sec­re­tary that he sus­pect­ed of snitch­ing about his il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, has lost his ap­peal against his con­vic­tion for at­tempt­ed mur­der.

De­liv­er­ing a writ­ten judge­ment, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke- Soo Hon, Mal­colm Holdip, and Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh re­ject­ed all the grounds of ap­peal raised by Joseph Melville and af­firmed the 19 year prison sen­tence he re­ceived when he was con­vict­ed in 2017. 

In the ap­peal, Melville’s main ground of con­tention was the fact that the tri­al judge who presided over his case al­lowed pros­e­cu­tors to use the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry tes­ti­mo­ny of one of the State’s main wit­ness­es Ains­ley Al­leyne.

Al­leyne, one of three men al­leged­ly hired by Melville to mur­der his sec­re­tary Pa­tri­cia Cox, was mur­dered be­fore the tri­al of the case and his tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the in­quiry was al­lowed in ev­i­dence.

Melville’s lawyer Evans Welch chal­lenged the process used by pros­e­cu­tors to ten­der his de­po­si­tion, as he ques­tioned their method of prov­ing that a head­less body iden­ti­fied as Al­leyne was in fact him through a pho­to­graph and fin­ger­prints. 

Re­spond­ing to Welch, at­tor­neys Tra­vers Sinanan and Tri­cia Hudlin-Coop­er said the tri­al judge was best placed to de­cide whether Al­leyne’s de­po­si­tion could be used based on the to­tal­i­ty of the ev­i­dence be­fore her.

In their judge­ment, the ap­peal pan­el not­ed that while the judge used an in­cor­rect pro­ce­dure to ten­der Al­leyne’s pho­to­graph in ev­i­dence for his aunt to iden­ti­fy him, the pho­to­graph could have still been used.

The pan­el al­so dis­agreed with Melville’s at­tor­ney over whether the State had pro­vid­ed enough ev­i­dence to sup­port its claim that Al­leyne was de­ceased and could not tes­ti­fy. 

The pan­el al­so re­ject­ed com­plaints over Al­leyne’s tes­ti­mo­ny, in which he (Al­leyne) al­leged­ly made prej­u­di­cial state­ments over Melville’s char­ac­ter. 

“In the event that the judge had giv­en the spe­cif­ic warn­ing to the ju­ry on how to deal with the im­pugned ev­i­dence in re­la­tion to the cred­i­bil­i­ty limb of the good char­ac­ter di­rec­tion, we do not be­lieve that it would have made a dif­fer­ence to the ver­dict giv­en the strength of the ev­i­dence,” they said. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Al­leyne, Hilton Win­ches­ter and Ja­son Hold­er were hired by Melville to kid­nap and kill Cox in 2001.

Al­leyne had claimed that on June 28, 2001, he was ap­proached by Melville, through a mu­tu­al friend Hold­er, and was of­fered $40,000 to kill Cox.

“He said she (Cox) was talk­ing his busi­ness with the po­lice and Fraud Squad was get­ting close,” Al­leyne said.

 Cox, in her tes­ti­mo­ny, had ad­mit­ted that she had threat­ened to re­port him af­ter she learned that he (Melville) had cashed in two in­sur­ance poli­cies and failed to pay them to his client.

Al­leyne tes­ti­fied that he, Hold­er and Win­ches­ter got in­struc­tions from Melville to dri­ve to and wait by his of­fice at Pem­broke Street in Port-of-Spain where Cox would meet them, for what she be­lieved would be a dri­ve to col­lect le­gal doc­u­ments at a client’s home.

He said that af­ter Cox got in­to the car, Win­ches­ter drove to Cum­ber­land Hill in St James.

Be­fore reach­ing the lo­ca­tion, Al­leyne “locked” Cox’s neck while Hold­er stripped her of her clothes and jew­el­ry.

 He ad­mit­ted to at­tempt­ing to sex­u­al­ly as­sault Cox in the car but claimed to have stopped af­ter she said she said she was on her pe­ri­od.

Al­leyne said that up­on reach­ing the lo­ca­tion, they took Cox out of the car and placed her to sit on a boul­der next to a precipice as they pon­dered how they would kill her as they had no knives or guns.

“He (Hold­er) picked up a stone and said it would be the fastest way to do it,” Al­leyne said.

He said that Cox was beg­ging for her life and he in­formed her that it was Melville  who had hired them to kill her.

 Cox then of­fered to pay them a larg­er sum to for­go killing her.

“I asked her if she want­ed to hide out and pre­tend to be dead and we would split the mon­ey with her when we got paid,” he said.

Be­fore she could re­spond to her pro­pos­al, she jumped off the precipice and ran in­to a forest­ed area. Hold­er found her but was forced to let her go af­ter a man who was hik­ing in the area saw the in­ci­dent through his binoc­u­lars and raised an alarm.

Cox said she hid for a while and then hiked through the forest­ed area through the night un­til she reached a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment the next morn­ing. 

Melville, Al­leyne, Hold­er and Win­ches­ter were charged with the crime. Al­leyne was made a State wit­ness, while Hold­er was freed at the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry stage.

Win­ches­ter was con­vict­ed along­side Melville in 2004 and was sen­tenced to ten years in prison. Melville ap­pealed his ini­tial con­vic­tion and got a re­tri­al.