CoA slashes neighbour-killer’s jailtime from 56 to 15 years

The Court of Appeal has quashed the murder conviction of 55-year-old Foster Gravesande, formerly of Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD), after finding that the jury was not properly directed on the defence of provocation.

Gravesande, who was convicted of murdering his 49-year-old neighbour, Courtney Porter, will now serve a sentence for manslaughter by reason of provocation instead of murder.
The appellate court subsequently reduced his 56-year prison sentence to 15 years.
The appellate court delivered its ruling recently in Foster Gravesande v Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), allowing his appeal in part.
Gravesande was represented by attorneys Nigel Hughes and Kiswana Jefford of the law firm Hughes, Fields & Stoby. Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Mercedes Glasford appeared for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The case arose from the March 25, 2017 beating of the Mahaica, ECD resident and father of three, who was struck on the head with a piece of wood during an altercation with Gravesande.
Porter had been accused by Gravesande of pulling his wife’s clothing. Following the incident, Porter was hospitalised, while Gravesande was charged with attempted murder and released on bail. Porter, however, succumbed to his injuries on April 9, 2017, about two weeks after the beating. Gravesande subsequently fled the area but was later captured in another policing division, after which the charge against him was upgraded to murder.
Following a preliminary inquiry, a Magistrate committed Gravesande to stand trial at the High Court in Demerara.
On December 10, 2020, Gravesande was found guilty of murder by a 12-member jury following his trial before Justice Navindra Singh, as he then was.
He was sentenced in January 2021 to 56 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Singh had started with a base sentence of 60 years but deducted four years for the time Gravesande had spent on remand. The Judge ordered that he would not be eligible for parole until he had served 28 years.
Gravesande subsequently challenged both his conviction and sentence before the Court of Appeal.
His grounds of appeal included an argument that the jury’s verdict was unreasonable and could not be supported by the evidence presented at trial. He also contended that the trial Judge had failed to sufficiently address deficiencies in the prosecution’s case, including contradictions in the evidence of eyewitnesses.
The Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the jury’s verdict was unreasonable.
It found that the trial Judge had adequately identified and explained inconsistencies and omissions in the prosecution’s evidence, and had properly directed the jury on how those matters should be assessed.
The appellate court also found no error in the directions given to the jury concerning self-defence and accident, noting that the jury had been correctly instructed that the prosecution bore the burden of disproving those defences.
However, the Court of Appeal found a material error in the manner in which the defence of provocation was presented.
While the trial Judge had correctly stated the legal principles governing provocation, the appellate court found that he had failed to adequately connect those principles to the evidence supporting Gravesande’s defence.
That evidence concerned the alleged assault on Gravesande’s wife and his repeated demands that Porter release her.
The defence had contended that Porter confronted and assaulted Gravesande’s wife in the street, tearing her clothing and grabbing her. According to the defence evidence, Gravesande twice demanded that Porter release his wife before throwing a stick in his direction.

Self-defence, accident & provocation
The defence had relied on self-defence, accident, and provocation.
The appellate court found that the trial Judge’s failure to relate the law on provocation to the evidence deprived Gravesande of proper consideration of that defence by the jury.
The court said it could not be satisfied that a properly directed jury would inevitably have convicted Gravesande of murder. As a result, the murder conviction could not be saved by the proviso. Rather than ordering a retrial, the Court of Appeal substituted a conviction for manslaughter by reason of provocation.
In determining the new sentence, the court considered that Porter’s death resulted from a single blow delivered with a weapon of opportunity during what appeared to have been a spontaneous incident.
It fixed a starting point of 18 years’ imprisonment before reducing the sentence to 15 years after taking into account mitigating factors.
Among those factors were Gravesande’s status as a first-time offender, his lack of a history of violence, and the fact that he had acted in response to an assault on his wife.
The court found no aggravating factors warranting an increase in the sentence.
The 15-year sentence is to run from the original date of sentencing, with nearly four years Gravesande spent on remand deducted. This leaves him with an effective remaining sentence of approximately 11 years. Gravesande has since applied for leave to appeal the decision to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The law firm, Hughes, Fields & Stoby, said the ruling underscores the importance of trial Judges not only stating the law governing available defences, but also clearly relating those legal principles to the facts arising from the evidence.
The firm further noted that where evidence capable of supporting a defence of provocation exists, the jury must be given a meaningful opportunity to properly evaluate that defence within the context of the case as a whole.