Derek Achong
On July 23, this year, citizens from across T&T breathed a collective sigh of relief as two juvenile offenders turned men were convicted of the heinous murder of Sean Luke.
Almost 15 years and four months earlier, six-year-old Luke went missing only to be found days later in an abandoned sugar cane field near his Henry Street, Orange Valley Road, Couva, home.
An autopsy, which revealed that he died from internal injuries and bleeding arising out of being sodomized with sugar cane stalk, still haunts the veteran pathologist who performed it and almost all who heard of details of the final horrific moments of his short life from her report.
Akeel Mitchell and Richard Chatoo were charged with the horrific crime and were only able to elect a judge-alone before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds after spending well over a decade on remand.
Mitchell and Chatoo’s case was one of eight murder indictments that were disposed of by the Judiciary over the 2020/2021 Law Term by utilising virtual hearings due to the closure of court buildings during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The use of technology did not only allow the trial to be completed safely and quickly over the course of four months but also allowed citizens to get a brief and rare glimpse into the criminal justice system with over 1,500 tuning in to a live link to witness Justice Ramsumair-Hinds deliver her long-awaited verdict in the case.
According to the evidence in the case, 13-year-old Mitchell, who is the stepson of Chatoo’s brother, was staying at 15-year-old Chatoo’s home, which was located within metres of Luke’s.
State prosecutors led the evidence of residents Avinash Baboolal and Arvis Pradeep, who claimed that Chatoo had invited Luke to accompany them on a fishing expedition organised by Baboolal.
Both Baboolal and Pradeep claimed that they saw Luke, Chatoo and Mitchell enter an abandoned sugarcane field, where Luke’s body was eventually found, with only Chatoo and Mitchell emerging.
Sean Luke and his mom Pauline.
However, while Baboolal claimed that they entered the field on their way to the river, Pradeep claimed the diversion came when they were returning.
Both claimed that they heard a strange noise emanating from the area but neither went in to investigate.
In her decision, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds said she believed Baboolal but not Pradeep, as his (Pradeep) evidence was riddled with inconsistencies and bizarre statements.
“Red flags were at full mast when he (Pradeep) began his evidence,” Justice Ramsumair-Hinds said.
Throughout the trial, Chatoo and Mitchell’s lawyers suggested that the murder was in fact committed by Baboolal, who they alleged sought to implicate the duo to cover his tracks.
They pointed to the fact that after Luke’s mother Pauline Bharath reported him missing, Baboolal joined fellow villagers in searching for him but chose not to lead the search party to the area in which he later claimed he last saw Luke.
They also highlighted the fact that Baboolal did not reveal that Luke had accompanied them on the fishing expedition until he was arrested alongside the duo.
Chatoo’s lawyer Evans Welch went as far as to suggest that villagers were on the right track to identifying who was responsible for the gruesome murder when they set fire to Baboolal’s home when he was released from custody.
“The police dropped the ball by letting Avinash go. The villagers who burned down Avinash’s house had far better instincts than the police,” Welch said.
Justice Ramsumair-Hinds spent a considerable portion of her decision rejecting the repeated insinuations against Baboolal.
“I remain sure, on the evidence, that Avinash Baboolal was not involved,” she said.
“Avinash Baboolal was simply not sure what on earth was going on. He did not realise what he knew,” Justice Ramsumair-Hinds said, as she noted that he would have believed Luke went home after defecating in the sugarcane field as claimed by Chatoo, when he rejoined the group.
Justice Ramsumair-Hinds also had to consider a video-recorded confession statement, in which Chatoo implicated himself and Mitchell when they were arrested by police.
Flashback March: Randolph Bharatt, father of murder victim Andrea Bharatt, hugs Pauline Lum Fai, mother of Sean Luke, during the Candlelight Movement meeting at the Barakah Grounds, Narsaloo Ramayah Road, Chaguanas.
SHASTRI BOODAN
In the recording, Chatoo claimed that Mitchell, who was spending time at his home, requested that he (Mitchell) have sex with him.
According to Chatoo, after he refused, he reluctantly agreed to Mitchell’s request to introduce him to Luke, who was his (Chatoo) neighbour.
Chatoo claimed that he merely held Luke’s hands and covered his mouth as Mitchell raped him and then sodomized him with the sugarcane stalk.
However, Chatoo elected to testify in his defence during the trial and claimed that he fabricated the confession as he was threatened and coerced by homicide detectives.
Chatoo denied any wrongdoing and claimed that Mitchell did not accompany the group on the fishing trip. He also sought to suggest that Baboolal may have been the perpetrator.
Justice Ramsumair-Hinds noted that Chatoo’s initial confession was not reliable as there were inconsistencies and because he sought to downplay his involvement.
She rejected his subsequent claims of police misconduct as she ruled that the homicide detectives in the case had provided clear and cogent evidence.
Luke’s case was the first in which a local DNA laboratory was used.
Although DNA testing equipment was available at the Forensic Science Centre in St James since 2001, the equipment was not properly calibrated when the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) requested the testing of court exhibits in April 2018.
The Woodbrook-based Caribbean Forensics Centre was subsequently certified to perform such testing and the tests were performed shortly before the trial began in March.
In his testimony, the company’s laboratory director Dr Maurice Aboud ruled that Mitchell could not be excluded as a minor contributor to the mixed sample that was lifted from a semen deposit on Luke’s clothing. Chatoo was not linked to the semen.
A partial DNA profile was found on the sugarcane stalk and on anal swabs taken during Luke’s autopsy but it was not linked to either Mitchell or Chatoo.
While Justice Ramsumair-Hinds accepted Dr Aboud’s evidence, she still criticised the delay in testing.
“I find that unacceptable,” Justice Ramsumair-Hinds said, as she noted that some samples collected had deteriorated over the lengthy period.
As a secondary issue in the case, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds had to consider whether a legal principle over the mental capacity of a child under 14 to have criminal intent applied to Mitchell.
Akeel Mitchell
She stated that it was rebutted as Mitchell was weeks short of his 14th birthday and based on the evidence was aware that his actions were wrong as he sought to give himself a false alibi by waiting by Luke’s home and speaking to his mother before the other children returned.
“He (Mitchell) pushed the cane stalk until there was nowhere else to go,” she said.
The case had an obvious effect on Luke’s still traumatised mother Pauline Bharath, who broke down while testifying early in the trial.
The mere sight of the pair of clothing her son was wearing the last time she saw him alive was enough to make Bharath, who was admirably composed for much of her testimony, break down in pain and anguish.
“It’s my baby underwear. His jockey shorts,” Barath screamed.
In her evidence, Bharath recounted that on the day of the incident she and Luke went to sleep together and she awoke to find him missing.
Bharath claimed that she found Mitchell sitting under a shed in front of her property and he told her that he did not know where Luke was.
Bharath said she was not immediately concerned by her son’s disappearance as he would normally visit relatives, who lived nearby unattended.
“I was never concerned because I lived around my family,” Bharath said.
She claimed that Mitchell stayed with her for a short while until Chatoo and a group of boys from their community were walking by her house.
She claimed that Chatoo, who she said would come over to play with Luke in the past, also denied knowing where Luke was.
Bharath said she then began going to relatives and neighbours’ homes in search of her son.
Bharath claimed that when she returned to the community, Mitchell told her that he had seen Luke going into another track with a tall man dressed in white.
Mitchell’s uncle and Chatoo’s stepfather Raymond Bruzual, who he (Mitchell) had moved in with about three weeks prior, then came over and relayed the same information about the man in white.
Bharath gave the information to police when she reported Luke missing and went in search of Luke’s father as he matched the description given.
The eventual outcome in the case was of little comfort to Bharath.
Richard Chatoo
“I just paused there and I took it in. It brings me no joy...This brought me no joy at all,” Bharath said, in an interview after the verdicts.
In her evidence, forensic pathologist forensic pathologist Dr Eslyn McDonald-Burris said that even after 15 years and hundreds of autopsies, she is still traumatised by her work in the case.
“I did not realise it would have such a negative effect on me,” she added.
During her testimony, Dr McDonald-Burris said that after an external and internal examination of Luke’s decomposing body she concluded that he died of internal abdominal and chest injuries caused by a 54 cm sugarcane stalk that was inserted through his anus.
“It was up through the anus and rectum; through the bladder, pelvic and abdominal cavities; perforating the bowels, stomach and diaphragm; entering the chest cavity; perforating the oesophagus and pericardial sac and causing lacerations to heart and right lung; ending at the upper border of the chest cavity near the collarbone,” she explained.
McDonald-Burris also noted that despite the extent of the internal injuries Luke would have survived for approximately 10 to 30 minutes before he succumbed.
“I do not think death was instantaneous,” she said.
While Chatoo and Mitchell’s defence team were seeking to discredit Dr McDonald-Burris’ evidence, their plan backfired as their pathologist Professor Hubert Daisley, who did not examine Luke’s body for a second autopsy but simply reviewed Dr McDonald-Burris’ notes, supported her findings in the case.
“He (Luke) would have been in a lot of agony,” Daisley said, as he claimed that Luke would have possibly survived for five to six minutes before he succumbed to internal injuries to his lungs, diaphragm, heart and intestines.
While there were numerous calls for the duo to face the death penalty, it could not apply to Chatoo and Mitchell as they were minors when they committed the crime.
In T&T, persons convicted of committing murder while they are minors are detained at the court’s pleasure and may be eligible for release after serving a mandatory minimum term set by the court.
Even upon completing the term, a former juvenile offender would only earn their freedom if a judge is convinced that they have been sufficiently rehabilitated and are no longer a threat to society.
In sentencing the duo in September, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds set mandatory minimum terms for Mitchell and Chatoo at 17 and a half years and 11 and a half years in prison, respectively.
Sean Luke
In calculating the mandatory minimums for the duo, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds began with a starting point of 35 years for Mitchell and 33 years for Chatoo.
Chatoo’s starting point was lower as he played a secondary role in Luke’s murder.
Mitchell’s starting point was increased by five years based on his principal actions in Luke’s murder, which included him placing himself near Luke’s mother after the murder to give him an alibi.
“It is the chilling realisation of the absence of remorse, worry and fear in someone so young. I know children who are terrified of being caught,” Justice Ramsumair-Hinds said.
She went on: “I can not quite capture the nature of the criminal deviance of a 13-year-old in killing a woman’s son and moments later sitting feet from her.”
However, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds reduced his sentence by seven years due to his age at the time of the murder and the fact that he had a positive report from prison in terms of disciplinary infractions and participation in educational and vocational programmes.
Chatoo did not receive an uplift in his sentence but was afforded a six-year reduction based on his age and positive prison record.
The time they spend on remand before they eventually went on trial was also deducted from the sentences.
