Accusing the judge who conducted his trial of committing a number of errors, Travis McDougall, who was sentenced in 2017 to 25 years for shooting and killing businessman Ashok Raghoo, is appealing his conviction and sentence.
A jury had found McDougall guilty of manslaughter for the unlawful killing of the businessman during a robbery on August 18, 2014 at the Vlissingen Road and Regent Street traffic lights.
In a notice of appeal, McDougall (the Appellant) contends that trial Judge Navindra Singh misdirected the jury on the law and elements of alibi, and failed to adequately direct them on the law and requirements of identification.
Through a battery of attorneys, led by Nigel Hughes and Narissa Leander, the Appellant also contends that the judge “wrongly” admitted his caution statement into evidence and allowed hearsay evidence to be admitted by allowing witnesses to testify about the content of a video tape that was not admitted into evidence and not made available to the defence.
McDougall complains, too, that the judge failed to adequately and/or fairly put his defence to the jury, while permitting what he said was the admission of prejudicial evidence, by allowing witnesses for the state to reference the video complained of.
At the conclusion of his trial, the jury had unanimously acquitted the convict on the capital offence, but by a proportion of 10 to 2 found him guilty on the lesser offence of manslaughter.
Wife of the deceased, Shirzaydah Raghoo, in her testimony, had identified McDougall as the rider of the bike from which the killer gunman dismounted. She had told the court that she clearly saw the faces of both McDougall and the shooter.
Raghoo had recounted that Ashok, who was a miner, had travelled from the interior some days before he was killed, and had gone to the Guyana Gold Board, where he uplifted a cheque for $4 million. Thereafter, they went to Citizens Bank, where he cashed the cheque.
She said that on the day in question, they left home together around 12.45 pm to transact business in the city; the money was in a black haversack.
On Vlissingen Road, the witness recalled, her husband brought their car to a halt at the traffic light, which indicated red at the intersection with Regent Street.
Almost immediately, the woman said, she saw a motorcycle ride up alongside her husband’s window, which was halfway up. She recalled that a man dismounted and demanded the bag, but her husband refused and was shot in the chest. Raghoo said the man then turned and shot her in the right foot, when she tried to grab the haversack, which was in the backseat. The couple was also robbed of a firearm and cellphones.
McDougall’s story was that he had nothing to do with the commission of the offence and was elsewhere at the time. His caution statement, which was admitted in evidence, however, said he told police that he had ridden the motorcycle from which the shooter had dismounted.
