Five years after being sentenced to a combined 202 years for the gruesome murder of 16-year-old Queen’s College (QC) student Neesa Gopaul, her mother Bibi Sharima-Gopaul and her former lover Jarvis Small will on October 1st make their first appearance before the Court of Appeal.
On that day the appellate court is likely to hold a case management conference (CMC) for the conduct of subsequent proceedings.
On March 5th, 2015 Justice Navindra Singh sentenced Sharima-Gopaul to 106 years in jail, while he sentenced Small, called ‘Barry, to 96 years, following a unanimous guilty verdict by a 12-member jury at the end of the High Court trial.
Lawyers for the convicts, however, subsequently filed appeals in which they argued among other things that Justice Singh committed several errors during the conduct of the trial, including the admittance of evidence that was prejudicial and failing to properly direct the jury.
They also say the sentences handed down were far too excessive.
In handing down the sentences, Justice Singh had said he was starting the sentence at 60 years for each of them. The judge then added 10 years because they premeditated the murder, 10 years because the victim was a child, 10 years for the brutality meted out to the girl and six years for the domestic violence she suffered.
Meanwhile, the judge told Sharima-Gopaul that she was being given an extra 10 years because Neesa was her child and she was supposed to protect her and not stand by and allow her to be murdered.
Main prosecution witness Simone Diane De Nobrega, who was a former cellmate of Sharima-Gopaul, said Sharima-Gopaul had confided in her that it was Small who murdered her daughter by bashing her head in with a piece of wood.
De Nobrega had said that Sharima-Gopaul related to her that Small told her that they needed to get Neesa “out of the picture” and that he eventually killed the teen in her presence.
The witness had told the court that despite her assurance to Sharima-Gopaul, she would not have been able to live with herself if she had kept such a secret. She said as a mother herself of two sons, “I couldn’t carry such a weight.” The woman added, “Neesa deserved to get justice and no matter what, Neesa didn’t deserve to die by the hands of someone she trusted; someone that was supposed to protect her.”
Both convicts have maintained that they are innocent.
Neesa Gopaul’s decomposing remains were found stuffed in a suitcase, which was discovered on October 2, 2010, anchored by several dumbbells in the creek at the Emerald Tower resort. Her head had been bashed in and the trial heard that 50% of it was gone when the recovered corpse was examined.
