Murder accused Calvin Bailey will have to face a new trial after jurors yesterday failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether he killed his 18-month-old son.
After close to four hours of deliberations at the High Court, the 12- member jury reported that it could not reach a unanimous verdict on Bailey’s guilt.
Justice Navindra Singh, who presided over the case, subsequently told the sad-looking Bailey that he would have to face a re-trial and would be remanded to prison in the interim.
Bailey is accused of mortally injuring Shaquan Nero after attacking the child’s mother and his then partner, Bernadette Nero, on April 4, 2007, at Amelia’s Ward, Linden.
In his summation of the evidence for the jury, Justice Singh told the court that in order to prove the case against the accused, the prosecution did not have to produce a weapon and there was no obligation on the state to establish a theory for the crime.
He also examined Bailey’s unsworn statement, which he gave to the court on Thursday.
Bailey, who was represented by attorney George Thomas, had told the court that on the day of the murder, he saw Nero at her aunt’s house, where she told him she was going to Georgetown. He said he was chased away after they had an exchange of words because he told her that he did not want his son to be taken to Georgetown and she emphasised her claim to the boy as well.
Bailey also said that he called Nero later in the night to tell her he needed to talk to her and see his son and she invited him to go to her, saying “Yes, you come. Ah got something for you.” When he returned to the aunt’s home, he claimed, Nero exited the house with Shaquan and he went to her and collected his son. As he was leaving, he added, Nero ran behind him.
“I feel something shock ma in ma right hand,” Bailey recounted, adding that he swung around and Nero fired another stab to him, which caught the child in his neck.
“Sir, when she catch Shaquan in he neck, I say ‘Bernadette, watch wah you do! Look you juk the child in his neck!’” he had told the court.
Justice Singh told the members of the jury that they could not draw adverse conclusions about Bailey because he chose to give an unsworn statement, which shielded him from facing questions from the judge, the prosecution, the jury or the defence, since the law gave him that privilege and for various reasons.
He also told the jurors that if they found that Bailey’s defence was weak, they should not convict him but go back to the prosecution’s case and see whether it had proven its case against him. Bailey told the court that he was at Nero’s aunt house, where she was, asking for his son but this was not supported by the evidence of Dawn Henry and Alfred Carrington, two prosecution witnesses who told the court that the child was not his. Carrington is the aunt of Nero and Henry is another relative.
Bailey’s statement about Nero telling him, “Yes, you come. Ah got something for you…,” when he called her and told her he wanted to speak with her and see his son “sounded threatening, the judge also noted.
Justice also told the jurors that they could consider, but did not have to go ahead with his opinion, questions of facts such as if Nero was in a threatening mood, why would she come out of the house with her son in her hand, and further, would she allow Bailey to take the child with him, as he claimed, and then attack him. He emphasised that it was for the jurors to decide what weight they would place on Bailey’s statement.
Prosecutor Konyo Thompson led the state’s case with Dhanika Singh. They had presented Carrington as a witness who said in his evidence that he was awakened by a loud noise coming from his yard and Nero saying, “‘Uncle Alfred! Uncle Alfred! Open the door!’”
The man said that when he opened the door, Nero was standing on the landing of the stairway with her son in her hands and Bailey was on top of her with an instrument in his hand stabbing her. As Bailey stabbed Nero, blood began to gush from the baby’s neck, he added.
