(Trinidad Express) A schoolboy who was charged with the murder of another schoolboy was yesterday found not guilty of the crime after spending nine years in prison.
Johnathan Timothy Bruce, who was 15 years old at the time, remained in prison custody charged with stabbing to death Renaldo Dixon over a girl on the morning of May 27, 2013, at Waterloo Secondary School.
A High Court judge yesterday delivered a verdict of not guilty in favour of Bruce after finding that Dixon was actually the one who initiated and prolonged the altercation that led to his death.
Based on the evidence, Justice Geoffrey Henderson said he found Bruce was acting in self-defence after the prosecution failed to prove otherwise.
While he had been successful on the self-defence argument, the judge noted Bruce had a knife in his possession on the school’s compound. After Dixon was stabbed, a knife was also found in one of his pants pockets. Bruce was a fifth-form pupil, while Dixon was in form three.
The stabbing took place after the girl, while in the presence of both Bruce and Dixon, was asked by Dixon to “choose” between him and the other boy.
While hesitant at first, she eventually chose Bruce with whom she previously had a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship for a short while before it came to an end the previous month.
In delivering his verdict, the judge pointed out this case came at a time when violence in schools is a topical subject. He said the case should be a lesson to those pupils who are bent on violence and they should know there are consequences for their actions.
“Let this be a lesson for those students who may be aware of this case that even though at the end of this trial Johnathan Timothy Bruce was acquitted for a school fight, firstly, knives have no places in schools.
“Pens, pencils and books, but knives have no places in schools and the court noted that there was a knife found in the front pocket of the deceased and there was another knife that was never retrieved in this investigation. So there were two knives. What are knives doing in schools? I don’t know.
“But for those who would have looked on, here is a schoolboy who has spent nine years of his life awaiting a trial. So even though he is acquitted he has lost nine years. It would have been better if everybody had just walked away,” said the judge.
Inconsistent evidence
Attorneys for the State argued during the virtual judge-only trial that Bruce had suddenly taken hold of Dixon and stabbed him in the back in full view of a number of other pupils in one of the school’s classrooms during the school’s morning break period.
But in his ruling, Justice Henderson said this was the account given by just one of the witnesses, who happened to be Dixon’s best friend at the time.
All of the other witnesses testified that Dixon was the aggressor, who pushed, and slapped Bruce to the face as the two of them were pressuring the girl to choose who she wanted to be with.
When she chose Bruce, Dixon walked out of the classroom and returned with a friend before the fight erupted between the two boys.
Some of the pupils testified that during the fight they heard Dixon scream out before noticing blood on his shirt. He then collapsed. Bruce fled the classroom but was caught by some of the other pupils and beaten. He was then detained by the school’s safety officer, who took him to the principal’s office.
Police later arrived at the scene and arrested Bruce.
Dixon was taken to a health institution but he was pronounced dead minutes later.
The judge said in weighing all the evidence, he placed little weight on the testimony of the witness who said Bruce had launched the attack on Dixon.
“Brandon Raphael is the only witness that identifies the accused as the person who started the fight and within seconds pulled out a knife and stabs the deceased.
“In this regard, his evidence stands in splendid isolation from the accounts given by the other students who in one way or another witnessed the incident.
“Brandon Raphael’s evidence is inconsistent with the accounts given by all the other witnesses that there was a commotion, that chairs and desks were being upset as the fight moved around the classroom because of the fight or that the deceased struck the first blow,” he said.