DOWN MEMORY LANE

The Guy Pool trial

This week we continue with the submission of defense counsel Kapila who argued that the evidence brought by the prosecution to support the confession of Guy Pool were also fabricated by the police.  In the confession Pool had said that he was given the bomb by Mr. Rene.  Mr. Kapila’s brief, it seems, was to ensure that the confession was not accepted by the Court as evidence.

These words  were said just after accused had told Lau Tee he wanted to see Ashford, he wanted to make a statement and he wanted to do so now.  Lau Tee does not offer to take the statement.  He does not ask him why he want to see Ashford.  He starts to ring Ashford at 2.30 a.m.  He does not find him home.  Lau Tee expects Ashford to be in bed.  He is the duty officer.  He did not get Ashford.  He had no reason to expect that Ashford would turn up that night at the station.  He does not tell accused that he can’t find Ashford.  He waits for an hour.  Ashford turns up with an interpreter so that Lau Tee would not be used in the exercise of interpreting.  Lau Tee’s statement produced.  He misses out the most important part of his evidence.  P.101 typed script and Exhibit T.  Commencement of break through in Guy Pool investigation.  Lau Tee misses that statement out.  Only other officer who has heard the same thing is not interviewed at all.  The first people to interview would be the 2 duty officers.  A statement is not taken from them.  It becomes significant when it comes to question of scream.  P.C Jean is not interviewed.  He carries the exact statement in his mind and the exact times of the officers arrival and nobody thought of asking him..   On 17th August Mr. Ashford interviews Denousse about screams but not the man who is standing at the gate with the keys.  In the summary of evidence  given to us P.C. Kilindo and P.C Jean are not mentioned.  First interviewed on the 12th September only after Denousse let them down.  Adjournment for prosecution to call Ashford and Stravens regarding statement of Denousse.  Prosecution prefers him as witness and not think of duty officer.  Prosecution shows great concern of the p.c.s of my clients.  Someone is fined Rs.3 in 1962.  Mr. Denousse has 10 years’ of imprisonment in Kenya and not even questioned about it.  In preference to their own police officers Denousse is called.

Is accused likely to have made those statements across the cells?  How does he know that Daphne is awake? But she is and answers immediately.  How does he know that she’ll understand that by these words he means “let’s make a confession” but she does and agrees? 

Prosecution case is that accused had been interviewed on 14th February and gave an alibi.  Again question in detail on 15th February.  He stuck to his alibi and elaborate it – 8 handwritten sheets  in capital letters interviewed by Scotland Yard and he survives it.  He has prepared false witness to his alibi as early as 14th February and the witness has been interviewed by police and he has confirmed the alibi – P.W. 10.  He does not retract it until accused is arrested.  Accused has her sister to confirm his story and she does so on 15th February.  She was interviewed by Scotland Yard and survives it.  He has gone to extent of killing his brother in-law if he breathes a word of it to anybody.  He knew there was no evidence with police of his involvement other than word of his brother-in-law whom he was successfully silenced for 6 months and who in my case knew it from him.  He knew that he had not even told Hermitte of any involvement of Albert Rene in planting that bomb, where or how the bomb was made.  He knew Hermitte could easily be shown to have a motive for accusing him after falling out with his statement.  He knew Hermitte had made a statement to the police before in line with his (accused) statement.  This accused desperately wants to go away to Australia and offers to reward Hermitte, suddenly decides at 2.30 a.m. in his cell that he wants to see Ashford and he wants to make a statement .  I submit it is totally incredible.  No jury, no layman would listen to this without asking himself that something had to happen.  He has been cross-examined before and he has fooled, Scotland Yard and now he has this desire to confess.  The silliness does not stop there.

Daphne who is conspiracy to this alibi and who has made a false statement to police, who’s been fighting her husband, has thrown him out, has a string of p.c.s agrees without the slightest hesitation and says “all right then.”  They are reversing 6 months  hard work.  She agrees in that instant at 2.30 to implicate her brother on a charge of bombing a hotel and which carries life sentence.  They don’t know at that stage if Stanley had made a statement or what he has said, according to prosecution.  In fact she has thrown him out knowing that he knows.  On 13th July she’s risking his giving information.

Here is a man worried about plastic chairs when there’s Rs. 70,000.—involved and she continues fighting him and then threw him out.  At 2.30 a.m she answers “be oui” without a pause.  She knows Stanley has made a statement to the police.  She is represented by counsel who tried to get her out of the station.  In court she is a tough, hardened witness who come out with an answer when you press a button but at 2.30 she is a different person and says “be oui”.

Mr. Ashford must have a poor opinion of the people to whom he is trying to sell his story.  On that evening there was nothing in accused’s or Daphne’s conduct to indicate the spontaneous desire arising  from remorse to confess all.  In fact all indication are to contrary.  Facts speaks louder than voice.  On balance of probabilities all signs indicate the presence of some intervening event about which prosecution has not taken into account.

Your Lordship does not have to believe every word defence witnesses have said.  I’ll urge why Your Lordship has to believe them.  Accused may have exaggerated when he said he smokes 45 cigarettes and when Daphne says she does not know which hand slapped her.  If someone slapped me I would not  take notice of the hand but I would be busy with other things.  Daphne did not say she was standing when she was slapped.  She said she was standing when Ashford pulled her by the hair.  I will not point out all the discrepancies of prosecution witnesses.

The accused could not have switched from the position he had adopted to the one which prosecution alleges he did without something happening.

The moment a doubt is raised in Your Lordship’s mind on the surrounding circumstances of if Your Lordship feels uneasy at the end of his weighing the evidence  that is a reasonable doubt to believe.

Daphne is the last person to have said “be oui” the moment her brother calls to her.  Statement that was taken from her by Lau Tee – Exh. CC.  Such obvious features in statement that Daphne could not have said if she did so voluntarily, it must be apparent that statement was taken in some other way.  It is not the result of a spontaneous desire to recite the fact.  My friend has concentrated on her version of how it was done.  Lau Tee was not closely connected in this investigation and not obvious for him to spot the errors.

Statement  recorded at 4.15 hrs.  Lau Tee gave evidence that it commenced at 4.15 because he could not get a witness, there was some delay.  Relevant to evidence of Mr. Fenner.  Reference 1st sentences of statement  she could not have said she was the concubine of Stanley  Hermitte and they live at Anse Aux Pins in one of the low cost houses.  This is not the truth.  Mr. Lau Tee does not know that on 13th July they had a violent row and they do not live together.

Prosecution have led evidence of Hermitte.  Evidence in main case.  My friend has harped it is a true statement.  We know that Daphne did not ask Guy where he got the bomb nor did he say that Mr. Rene had given it to him.  Stanley would have heard that, he on whom prosecution is relying.  We know that her statement that she took him to his place is not true.  He went  to sleep on a rock.  It is unlikely she would say that she lent Guy her bicycle.  It was not hers, it was Stanley’s.

She says 3 typed sheets were shown by Stravens and it was read to her 3 times.  She is purporting it is Stanley’s statement but she is not in a position to say so.  She is reduced to a state of involuntariness just to get away from the station.  She blurted out something on the pattern of what had been read to her.  She would never in her senses have made that statement and start off with such sentence.  People do not make statements like that.  A person describing involvement to the bomb, she would say “I want to tell the truth or on the night of the explosion Guy came to my house”.  This Exhibit CC is a spontaneous confession.  To put it forward as such is to deny one’s whole experience it is Stanley’s statement but she is not in a position to say so.  She is reduced to a state of involuntariness just to get away from the station.  She blurted out something on the pattern of what had been read to her.  She would never in her senses have made that statement and start off with such sentence.  People do not make statements like that.  A person describing involvement to the bomb, she would say “I want to tell the truth or on the night of the explosion Guy came to my house”.  This Exhibit CC is a spontaneous confession.  To put it forward as such is to deny one’s whole experience. Reference Exhibit BB.  Just look at it and it is apparent that it is not a spontaneous, voluntary statement.  He would start “I want to tell the truth, I want to confess, I did place the bomb, it is not my fault Mr. Rene gave me the bomb”.  But just look at Exhibit BB and one starts to develop reservations.  His statement was taken by Wen Yam who prosecution describe as astute, he is learning fast.  There are many slips in the statement.  Reference last page – “Albert Rene told me on that night that after the explosion ………. Dance at Bay Lazare”.  Interesting paragraph for a number of reasons.  On 14th he had made a statement to police describing his alibi.  Here is Mr. Rene for the first time telling him of the alibi to put forward which previously he has already made.  Even before he sees the police at 3.30 on 14th February Mr. Larue has already corroborated his alibi at 1.30 p.m.  We know that on Tuesday 15th at 3.30 accused was at Reef Hotel being interviewed by the police and his statement was being taken in capital letters.  In Exhibit BB he says he saw Mr. Rene on Tuesday 15th about 4 p.m. 

This statement  has been put together with great difficulty.  Accused does not like the first part of it. Accused’s confession features in it which give rise to disquiet without going through evidence of witnesses as to how it was taken.  Taking statement as it is.  It came to Your Lordship nearly at end of exercise.  To fully grasps its implications it needs close analysis.  Yours Lordship sees caution which prefaces it.  It follows meticulously the Judges Rules’ of 1964 to the letter.  There can’t be criticism of the way in which it has apparently been followed.  Circumstances which on evidence raises highest suspicion.  We know that Ashford didn’t know the form of caution under rule 4.  In course of case he has cautioned 10 – 15 times.  Almost a man reaches him he utters a caution.  Statement that he took which Your Lordship excluded failed to follow Rule 4.  A.G. contended that in relation to person arrested and in custody rule 4 didn’t apply.  At that level there is doubt as to whether this rule applied or not.  Wen Yam said Ashford  told him how to take statement.  He has only 5 years’ service with the force.  Ashford advised him of the caution.  He did not know what Ashford had told us.  Wen Yam has been studying a book from the start of his career and he has been reading this rule.

Prior to 1972 Wen Yam was applying complicated new Judges’ Rules which even lawyers find difficult to adopt.  Who is the mind behind this exercise.  Not Wen Yam, not Stravens not even Ashford.  Inescape le conclusion that police was not interested in the accused.  No need for bustle of activity which developed that night.  No need for officers to be getting in uniform at 2.30 a.m.  Accused would not incriminate himself and get convicted and the case would be over.  Less ambitious police might have required a much shorter confession but the endeavour was not to put him in the dock but to convert him into a witness.  Peculiar feature of the statement.  There was a rough outline prepared in which accused would admit to planting of bomb but the meat of it was to implicate Albert Rene.

Hermitte had said not a word about it.  This was to be starting point.  My friend said how could Ashford have applied brutality on accused when his senior officers could have walked in on him at any time.  He is taking if for granted that Ashford, Wen Yam and Stravens are telling the truth when they say that from 12.30 they were patrolling the town area.  A.G. expresses his shock from time to time when the senior officers are mentioned.

We go to conclusions with great reluctance Mr. Fenner and Goodhild when they first gave evidence I was quite willing to give them the benefit of doubt.  I did not cross-examine Mr.                     Fenner on assumption that he must be telling the truth and no necessary in consistent with defence.  Early in the morning, he had not seen these people before and an error in observation the more so for absence of complaints.  He was called by the police.  Would police call him if person had been crying on being ill-treated.  But that’s not what happened that night.  I was accepting their evidence.  If there is a voluntary confession why is there need for the commissioner to be called and for him to call his deputy and the doctor to establish that they were not ill treated.  From almost day after police are preparing evidence that she never wept, there  was no scream, there was not ill-treatment.  Why is Denousse statement taken?

Statement in its entirety is attributing to Albert Rene who is a barrister, politician, head of opposition.  He is speaking of a man whom he does not know, no evidence of this.  I did not ask a single witness which political party he supports.  Prosecution asks a witness whether his father-in-law is a politician.

Mr. Kapila:

Statement begins at 3.40 hours.  Wen Yam and Stravens in their evidence say 3.45.  The English translation given to me mentions 3.45.  They arrived at the station at 3.40.  Ashford, Wen Yam, Stravens, Jean say 3.40.

Statement  refers, - Mr. Rene planning a serious offence, telling a brother to tell accused to come and see him.  He does so and Rene tells him it is not important and he’ll see him on Saturday at Chez Nous.  Accused goes back to work.  On Saturday accused sees Mr. Rene but he is not there.  On Sunday he goes to a meeting.  First he goes to Chez Nous and he finds Rene there and they go behind a bar where there was nobody.  He still does not tell him, asks him to come at 8 p.m.  He goes to meeting, he goes home in a red Toyota No. S1477.

Police did not ask any question but still accused volunteers car number and that he was wearing shorts.  Without councel leading  a witness all this would not even come out in a court as such.

We do not have 3 typed sheets.  Accused did not like the way it implicated him.  He is asked details of what he had done the week before.

At 8 p.m. he meets Mr. Rene at Chez Nous.  He still does not tell what he is wanted for.  He walks towards town and then he is met by Albert Rene who is driving a white car.  He gets in the car.  Presumably he would have got in front seat.  But 200 yds further the car stops and a young coloured man who he knew at Bonte get in the front seat.  Up to now Mr. Rene has not told him what is afoot.  Crucial for police to know who Bonte is.  Wen Yam refrains to ask him who he is.

They get to the house and there accused sees a man who he knows as Flake Vidot.  Mr. Rene asks him if he knew the man and he says yes.  Mr. Rene collects a group of accomplices who he does not know if they know each other. 

Police does not ask accused if Flake has another name.  They arrest Bonte next day and Rene Vidot.  The first thing they should do would be to get accused to identify Bonte. 

Make an identification parade and get accused to point him out.  Rene Vidot is asked if he is Flake.  He stays mute.  He is not shown to accused he who implicated them.  Rene Vidot is released and police holds Claude Vidot in custody.

At prison accused writes a letter “reassuring” Mr. Ashford that he will plead guilty tomorrow.  Police should have asked accused to identify which one he refers to as Flake.  In the Supreme Court Mr. Grimmett for Crown files a nolle for Claude Vidot and he also shows a letter from accused.  I did not look a the letter and the accused pleaded not guilty.  The nolle for Claude Vidot is handed in only after he has pleaded not guilty.  If he pleads guilty the nolle goes back in his file and he is sentenced to a term of imprisonment.  A.G. put to accused that the first inkling the police had about these people was in his statement.  That does not link with story prosecution is putting forward.  The two Vidots are questioned at the time of arrest and again in the middle of the night, then they are offered bribes while all the police had to do is to get accused to identify the Flake he meant.  Accused is the one who implicated him.  Bonte is not released.  He did not have the courage to threaten Ashford to bite his nose off.  The Vidots are released because they do not make any statements.  That is to show gratitude.  The one who make statements are held in custody and Bonte whose trial has not started is denied bail. 

They erroneously arrested Rene Vidot.  They release him and retain Claude.  Both are known as Flake.  No evidence that Claude has even been called Flake.  If Ashford knows both of them as Flake he should have thought which one to release and which one to keep.  First inkling comes from accused.  Statement continues that Albert Rene and Flake went into a room and came out with vacoa bags and Japanese aluminium buoys.  At this stage accused does not know what he is wanted for.  He has not said that he will do what is asked of him.  He has three strangers who for all he knows might hate each other, he has collected them in his fashion.  Now he walks in with vacoa bags and buoys with which to make two bombs.

The expert said it had to be aluminium, like a sea buoy amongst other things.  He had sent a report to the police in March.  I wanted it to be clear that Mr. Ashford knew that the article was a sea buoy.  “Japanese” on which A.G. refers is only a local expression.  “They placed these objects in front of us”.  In this the activity of an average criminal.  He has to know the three people intimately enough to know that he is reliable and they will be willing to work together.  You can know someone all your life and still don’t know that he will murder for you.  At least you would discuss it with him.  Throwing a bomb in a hotel is not a daily routine.  He does not have his bombs ready in advance.  This might have made sense.  But here we have the objects placed in front of them and Albert Rene said he would show them how to make bombs, just as one would say to three people “I’ll show you how to play bridge”.

No questions or words from the three people.  Accused noticed                 the gelignite sticks.  Mr. Ashford knows how many sticks are needed.  That is where the typed sheets begin to make sense.  Rene tells them to fill the buoys with the gelignite and they do it promptly without a word.  Then the smell of gelignite affects accused and he falls unconscious.  A man of average intelligence would then say “this man won’t die and I’ll throw him out”.  When he comes to he finds Rene, Bonte and Flake fixing the fuse.

A.G. puts to accused that he has a proffensity for fainting.  Highly unsuitable material to hire for this sort of task, Mr. Rene cannot be short of people who faint at smell of gelignite.  He could have got another security guard who is on duty rather than off duty and who has to come on the scene in a car.  Why was it necessary to put in the sentence that he fainted.  They are working on the report of experts who do not know about detonator.  This can’t be described.  At that point accused conveniently falls unconscious.  He does not know what is fitted inside the buoys.  Mr. Ashford does not know these details.  He comes to and sees them fixing the fuse and they put the buoys in the bags which Albert Rene sews up.  Then he asks accused if he had the courage.  A bit late to ask him.  It should have been asked much earlier.  Accused says he is a bit weak and Rene give him an orange drink.  That was Wen Yam’s idea when accused wanted them to reduce his role if they wanted a statement from him.  Then Rene puts two bags in the car and Flake puts in a third one.  Then they get into the car and went in direction of La Misere.  Arriving at La Louise Flake gets out with his bag which contained the gelignite wrappings.  He goes to the bush and does not meet them again.

Then they go towards Anse Aux Pins.  Arriving at Petit Paris they saw a grey car parked by the side of the road.  They leave the bombs in the car in which there is a man sleeping.  The car does not want to start and the bags are left in the grey car.  At Cascade for the first time accused is told what he is to do.  This is the kind of nonsense which prosecution is trying to sell us.  Accused asks which hotel.  He does not know where.  He is told Reef Hotel at a place where there is nobody.  Then they went on.  Accused does not react.  He does not want to know anything.  Total silence. He does not even say “be oui”.  Albert Rene commands that kind of silence.

Accused alights were stiven used to live.  He does so and sits by the side of the road and waits for Bonte.  Bonte and Rene go on.  20 minutes late Bonte comes in a white Constain pick up van asks him to get in.  Arriving at Petit Paris where the broken car was Bonte gets the 2 bags and puts in front with them.  They go back to Anse Aux Pins.  Arriving at Reef Hotel when accused was alighting he asks what will happen to the bag and Bonte says it will just burst into flame.  It in only at this stage that he enquires something.  His being a security guard at the hotel is just coincidence.  He is known in the place.  He must be smoking at that time and light the fuse with his cigarettes.  He goes to the steps and lights the fuse.  Yours Lordship knows the steps are 30ft. away from evidence of the expert.  He does so and thrown it on balcony.  Then he is frightened.  He runs towards Daphne’s place.  When he hears the bang he was scared and he falls.                  Then he goes to Daphne’s.  After a while Daphne accompanies him home, he is scared and he goes to sleep on a rock.  It fits in completely with accused’s explanation as to why the statement was altered on the typed sheets.  He reached his home and he is afraid to go in.  He sits on a rock and falls asleep.  He gets up at 6.15 a.m. and goes inside.  He tell his mother that he had been at Bay Lazare.  Quick thinking alibi.

He is drawn into this plot without knowing anything.  All these things happen to him.  At 6.15 he tells him mother that he’s been dancing at Bay Lazare.  But he tells Stanley so and 2 minutes later threaten to kill him.  He makes up his alibi at 6.15 a.m. on 14th February.  He does not invent it after a pause and consideration.  He does not tell his mother about placing the bomb.  He is keeping a secret.  He could trust his mother but he goes and confides in Stanley who neither he nor his sister trust.

Albert told him to come and see him after the explosion.  What explosion?  He did not know.  Rene did not mention an explosion.  At what time was it mentioned.  Accused did not go to see him on 14th.   He goes to work that afternoon.  He sees Rene on Tuesday that afternoon, tremendous sang froid.  We know this is impossible because at that time he was making a statement.  Rene tells him that if police questions him to say that he had been at Bay Lazare.  At that very time he is eleborating on his alibi.  I submit it is impossible for an 8 page statement in capital letters to have ended at 4.10 p.m.  It is not a spontaneous statement it is questions and answers.  The first statement which is less than half of 2nd statement took an hour.  I would say the 2nd statement ended about 5 p.m and there’s about half hour from Reef Hotel to SPUP Office.  It is established that this paragraph can’t be true.  That Mr. Rene is wrongly accused.  He can’t have told him which alibi to put forward.  He has already done so, once to his mother, the next time to the police and at that very moment he is elaborating on it to the police.  If Rene had told him so before it would have appeared somewhere else in the statement during conversation they had.  The interpretation that favours accused.  When one looks at whole paragraph chance of ambiguity is very slight.  The sentence before that reads “Albert Rene told me, on that night I should come and see him the next morning”.  That’s all he told him that night.  The sentence about the dance at Bay Lazare is told to him on Tuesday 15th.

Accused has given reason that the statement  was implicating him too much.  At the end  he says he did not get any money and he would not have done it if he knew what trouble it would have caused.  Far more consistent with accused.  Version that his reluctance which Mr. Ashford had to overcome from time to time and they added one or two lines if it was worth his signature.

Statement as a whole, irrespective of evidence led in court, carried all the tale signs of a put together version designed to implicate somebody else, a version put together fairly hostily.  They all indicate version of accused that there was a prepared statement and hastily altered with a few details and the opening preamble and how at the last minutes he had no knowledge.  He regrets at the end the lack of motivation for money.  He did so out of fright and with hope of release or reward and he signed it.  If police had taken a short statement from accused they might have got away with it.

A.G. has said a great deal about memorising evidence.  When one looks at the case of Rene Vidot who prosecution says was arrested by error and was later released.  Inconceivable that he could not have been coached in advance.  If police arrests you by mistake then make an allegation that Mr. Ashford offered you Rs.50,000.—and passage to Australia, he could have been coached for the complaint he made to Mr. Goodchild before he had the chance to see anyone.  He is arrested on night of 3rd, he is released on 5th.  He complains on 4th.  His complaint is similar to that of the other people involved.  Three of them succumbed to it, two of them got away from it.

 Not a single alteration or correction of the statement.  Not once does the accused go back.  Not one word deleted.  Even when reading back he does not clarify things or add word to statement of 8 pages.  The language is not spontaneous, unprompted and voluntary language the way Mr. Wen Yam would have us believe.  If he stops for a full minute they wait.  He describes clothes, car, its number, time and the year 1972.

A.G. commented on the way in which I framed my objection at start of trial within a trial.  The ground is that it’s not a voluntary statement, p.104 and 105.  Our case is that the Judges’ Rules was not followed at all as it is purported to have been followed.  The caution was only written down.

If I said to a witness he had 3 sheets of paper and he said no, there is no obligation to put it to him that he asked him such questions.  Defence challenges the whole of his evidence.  You only show that he is lying from the start.  My friend criticised that and anyway the witnesses were recalled and cross-examined.

The cross-examination of accused and Daphne was totally ineffective.  The length of accused’s cross-examination was equal to its futility.  My friend in each case contented himself by putting to each witness that what he was saying was not the truth.  Contrast of defence witnesses with prosecution witnesses, on contents of evidence and demeamour, the defence have been more impressive that the experienced police officers called by prosecution.  Accused remained calm and unflustered throughout.  There were details which my friend brought out which could not have been anticipated and yet accused remained calm and was not shaken.

April 13, 2007
Copyright 2007: Seychelles Weekly, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles