State and defence lawyers appeal to jury

Justice Randall Worrell will next Tuesday give his summation in the murder trial of Conroy Ramsay before handing the case to the jury.

Attorneys in the matter on Thursday made their final addresses to the 12 jurors who heard evidence in the case in which Ramsay is accused of killing Kimberley Hinds, the mother of his child, on March 17, 2013.

Hinds’ naked body was discovered on the living room floor of her Rock Hall, St Thomas residence that day.

In her closing address, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Queen’s Counsel Donna Babb-Agard urged the jury to return a guilty verdict after assessing the quality of evidence presented by the state.

She argued that according to the evidence, the accused man had several opportunities to leave after going to Hinds’ residence at 3 o’clock in the morning, but he “didn’t take any one of them”.

In a written statement to police, Ramsay said he had called Hinds’ phone that morning.

“She ain’t answer at first. I called again and she answer . . . [and] the phone cut out. I call again, I heard the phone answer and sex noises on the phone. I felt hurt and angry because I still got feelings for her,” he told police.

The DPP questioned what Ramsay was doing at Hinds’ home at 3 a.m.

“. . . . After you knew she was having sex with someone else? . . . You can’t be such a glutton for punishment . . . .”

Babb-Agard continued that based on the accused’s statement, he parked his car, knocked on the door, and Hinds opened.

“She was under no threat in her mind,” the DPP added.

Painting a picture of what happened next, based on Ramsay’s statement and other evidence, she added: “He has knocked twice on her door and been let in, and he didn’t walk away. He pushes her and ‘she fall on the floor . . . she got up  . . . she started to kick and slap me’ . . .  she went into her kitchen – he did not take that opportunity to leave . . . and ‘she jump my neck’ . . . I hold her and I slammed her to the ground’. Words mean everything and words matter; you have to look at all the evidence before you.”

Again pointing to his statement, the prosecutor said Ramsay left after “the deed [was] done already”.

“ . . . . That is when he decides to go home . . . too late in the game to go,” Babb-Agard said.

The DPP further pointed out that the accused stated that Hinds was “breathing funny”, yet he did not call for help at any time.

“You have to have regard . . . to all of the evidence in this case,” she told the jury. “Your duty, madam foreman and your members, is to assess what his intention was at the time in order for the charge of murder to stand. I will ask you, madam foreman and your members, to return a verdict in accordance with the oath that you have taken and find that the accused man is guilty as charged”.

Defence counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens, in her address, also urged the jury to think about all the circumstances when they deliberate.

“He shouldn’t have left, he panicked, he made a wrong decision . . . ,” the lawyer said, adding that her client later turned himself in.

“She jumps on his neck, he slams her to the ground. . . . But the context is always important. He didn’t just go there and slam her to the ground. She wasn’t walking away from him when he slammed her to the ground . . . this is in the course of a fight. ‘She was on my neck’ . . . . What is he doing? He is defending himself and the consequences are accidental.

“Are we going to judge him based only on the use of the word ‘slam’. In circumstances where you are in a police station and you are trying to unburden yourself about the death of the mother of your child, in circumstances that took place in a fight between both of you, would you know the right words to use?

Mitchell-Gittens said it was “an unfortunate situation all around”.

“ . . . . You have to look at all the evidence that is before you . . . . to make you feel sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, of his guilt,” she said.

The defence counsel also told the jury that if they found that her client was “acting in self-defence or that she [Hinds] died by accident, then you have to find him not guilty, not guilty of anything at all”.

“The only evidence before you . . . (being his evidence) . . . ‘she jumped on my neck . . . . I slam her on the ground’. As unfortunate as a lot of the circumstances in this matter are, the evidence led by the [state] cannot make you feel sure beyond a reasonable doubt that Conroy Ramsay is guilty of murder or anything else,” she contended.