Saunders (Appellant) v The Queen (Respondent) (Bahamas)

Case summary

Case ID

JCPC/2015/0045

Jurisdiction

Bahamas

Parties

Appellant(s)

Melvin Saunders

Respondent(s)

The Queen

Issue

Whether the Court of Appeal was wrong to dismiss the appellant’s appeal without a hearing; whether the criminal proceedings were vitiated by a procedural error at the committal stage; whether the appellant was denied a fair trial because DNA samples were not provided to the defence.

Facts

The appellant was convicted of rape in 1996 and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. He brought an appeal to the Court of Appeal of the Bahamas in 1997 which was dismissed without an oral hearing. He contends that his committal for trial was defective because the procedure for taking witness depositions did not comply with the then-applicable provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. He alleges various further defects in the trial process, including a failure to provide samples of DNA evidence to the defence. He appeals against his sentence on the basis that the judge failed to invite submissions from defence counsel before proceeding to sentence him. He further contends that it was not made sufficiently clear from what point the sentence should run, given that he was serving multiple other sentences concurrently at the time.

Date of issue

31 March 2015

Judgment details

Judgment date

27 January 2020

Neutral citation

[2020] UKPC 4

Judgment links

Appeal

Justices

Lord Carnwath

Lord Hodge

Lady Black

Lord Lloyd-Jones

Lady Arden

Hearing dates

Start date

27 November 2019

End date

27 November 2019

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