Jersey Unreported Judgments

Superior Number Sentencing - murder - perverting the course of justice

[2021]JRC076

Royal Court

(Samedi)

17 March 2021

Before     :

Sir William Bailhache, Commissioner, and Jurats Olsen, Ramsden, Ronge, Dulake and Austin-Vautier

The Attorney General

-v-

Jamie Lee Warn

Sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, to which the accused was remanded by the Inferior Number on 13^th November, 2020, following conviction at Assize Trial to the following charges:

1 count of:	Murder (Count 1).
2 counts of:	Perverting the Course of Justice (Count 2 and Count 3).

Age:  57.

Plea: Not guilty. 

Details of Offence:

The accused was in a secret sexual relationship with a Hungarian lady around 20 years his junior.

 

In the days leading up to her death text message communication between the pair showed that she had been seeking money from the accused.  He had failed to provide that money on a number of occasions.  On the evening of 10^th May, 2018, she had travelled to his flat in the expectation of obtaining the money.  CCTV evidence showed her car travelling to the accused's flat at 18:30 hours.  She sent an email to an ex-boyfriend at 19:30hours, which was the last evidence of her being alive.  At around 20:20 hours the defendant entered his local convenience store alone and purchased a bottle of hand sanitizer.  The Crown's case was that he had murdered her by this point.

 

Early the following morning the accused was seen on CCTV driving the deceased's car into a public car park near his flat and purchasing parking pay cards for the day.  The Crown's case was that the deceased's body was in the boot of the car.  The car remained in the car park for three days and was only approached by the accused when he placed more pay cards into it.  Over the course of those three days, the deceased's mobile telephone communicated predominantly with mobile telephone masts which served the area in which the accused lived, indicating that he was in possession of her mobile telephone.

 

Over the days following the murder the accused planned how he would dispose of the body.  He made internet searches on his mobile phone for "tide times" and also researched how to prevent the location of a mobile phone being tracked.  He also sent messages to and from the deceased's mobile telephone, which was in his possession, intended to give the impression that she was still alive and communicating with him.

 

In the early hours of the morning of 14^th May, 2018, the accused drove the deceased's car out of the car park to the north west coast of the island.  Mobile cell-site evidence placed him at Le Pulec ("Stinky Bay") for twenty minutes just after 1am.  He then drove the deceased's car down to St Aubins and onto the beach at La Haule.  He left the vehicle with its windows open at the edge of the sea at low tide in the knowledge that it would be submerged, and evidence destroyed.

 

In the days that followed the accused gave the impression that he was unaware of what had happened to the deceased.  When contacted by her employer once she had failed to turn up for work, he said that he did not know where she was.  His response when contacted by a friend of the deceased to inform him that a missing persons enquiry had been launched, once the car had been discovered on the beach, was one of surprise.

 

The accused went on to give a witness statement to the police in which he described his own relationship with the deceased in positive terms and highlighted the fact that her relationship with a recently ex-boyfriend had been troublesome and violent.  The Crown's case was that this was a deliberate attempt by the accused to point the finger of blame for her disappearance at the ex-boyfriend.  He maintained that the deceased had contacted him over the course of the previous weekend when in fact he had killed her.  He lied and said that there had been no sexual relationship between them.

 

The deceased's body was discovered by a dog walker washed up on a bed of seaweed at Le Pulec on Wednesday 16^th May and a murder enquiry launched.  The accused gave a further statement on 23^rd May in which he continued to maintain that he had been in contact with the deceased following her death and again referred to the difficult relationship she had had with her ex-boyfriend.

 

The accused was arrested and in due course charged, shortly after the second statement.  He pleaded not guilty to all matters.  

 

The defendant was originally tried and convicted on all counts in March 2019, however, those convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in July 2019 on account of material irregularities in the course of his trial.  A retrial was ordered which was listed for January 2020.  That trial was adjourned on the defence application as a result of service of further evidence by the prosecution to a date in March 2020.  The March date was adjourned because it was impossible to accommodate an assize trial during the early part of the Covid pandemic.  The retrial eventually took place in November 2020 at the conclusion of which the defendant was convicted by unanimous verdict of the jury.

Details of Mitigation:

The defendant had contested the matter at trial and had refused to engage with the Probation Service in the preparation of a Social Enquiry Report for the purpose of sentence, which afforded him no mitigation.  However, he had waited in custody for longer than he would otherwise have had to for his retrial, and this was no fault of his own.

Previous Convictions:

Historic previous convictions, principally for offences of dishonesty dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s

Conclusions:

Count 1:	Life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years and 2 months' imprisonment .
Count 2:	3 years' imprisonment, concurrent.
Count 3:	3 years' imprisonment, concurrent.

Total:  17 years and 2 months' imprisonment.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Count 1:	Life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years and 2 months' imprisonment
Count 2:	2 years' imprisonment, concurrent
Count 3:	2 years' imprisonment, concurrent

Total:  14 years and 2 months' imprisonment.

S. C. Thomas and M. R. Maletroit, Crown Advocates.

Advocate J. W. R. Bell for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE commissioner:

1.        The defendant is here to be sentenced on one count of murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice having been convicted unanimously by a jury following trial last November.  The circumstances of the murder can be only briefly stated because there is no conclusive evidence as to how, or where or indeed possibly when the victim lost her life, but from the verdict one can be sure that the jury were satisfied to the criminal standard that the Crown had established its case.

2.        That case was that the defendant killed his 37 year old secret lover at some point on or shortly after Thursday 10^th May, 2018.  He coolly went to work the following day having secreted the body of the victim somewhere, and after work the following day he spent at least some of the evening at his local pub with his girlfriend.  Over the next couple of days he took steps to create a narrative that the victim was still alive, although by then she was dead, and in the early hours of Monday morning he drove the victim's car to Stinky Bay where he deposited the body of the victim before driving the car to St Aubin's Bay where he abandoned it at the edge of the tide.  His intention must have been to create a belief or at least a suspicion that the victim had killed herself by drowning whether the body was found later or not, and that Monday he subsequently went to work as normal.  

3.        The two counts of perverting the course of justice arise out of the lies which the defendant told to the police.  We have accepted the submission of Advocate Bell that those charges do not relate to pointing the finger at the former boyfriend of the victim. 

4.        The sentence for murder is life imprisonment and we are charged by the Criminal Justice (Life Sentences) (Jersey) Law 2014 to fix a starting point with a view to ordering a minimum period of imprisonment, having regard to aggravating and mitigating circumstances and there is an inclusive list of factors which is set out in the statute.  In our view, as moved by the Crown and accepted we think by the defence, the starting point is clearly one of 15 years.  The aggravating factors and features which are set out in Article 5 or 6 of the 2014 Law do not arise and so one is not looking at a 30 or whole life sentence.

5.        The Court has then looked at the question of aggravating and mitigating features set out under Article 9.  The only aggravating feature that we identify, indeed as the Crown has identified, is the question of concealment of the body of the victim and we noted that there was no destruction and no dismemberment of the body; it was only a question of concealment, I say only because there are certainly circumstances where the treatment of the body might include destruction or dismemberment which would be a more serious aggravating factor.

6.        The mitigating factors which are put forward by Advocate Bell include a lack of premeditation which we accept in relation to the murder.  They include the fact that the defendant has suffered a procedural delay, and I will come back to that in just a moment, that he has no relevant previous convictions and should be treated as a person of good character, and will also say a word about that, and that he has good work history.  So, it is suggested by Advocate Bell that the combination of those features mean that the Crown has added too much for the aggravated factor and not taken away enough for the mitigation.

7.        As to the question of procedural delay we have taken into account in this case that the Court process has been hanging over the defendant for longer than it would have done had there been only one trial, that is, had the Crown in the court below had not made the errors that were identified in the Court of Appeal decision.

8.        In saying that, one has to accept that the finding of the jury on the second occasion shows that the errors which the Crown made on the first trial would actually have made no difference to the outcome.  But nonetheless, there has been a process hanging over the defendant for longer than would otherwise have been the case.  Of course, it has also been affected by the pandemic, but we do not think that is something which we can really take into account because that is just a feature of life in the last 12 months.  But we do think that the delay is not down to the defendant in anyway and we have taken it into account.

9.        We have also taken into account that despite what was clearly a bad start in life, because all the defendant's substantive previous convictions, related to offences committed when he was a relatively young man, the consequence is said that he can be treated substantially as a person of good character; and to the extent that is relevant in a murder sentence, we have taken it into account.  Also, that he has had a good work history and has generally over the last 30 years lived what one might describe as a generally prosocial life.

10.      Taking all the features that I have mentioned into account, the Court considers that the right sentence that ought to be imposed moving up from 15 years for the aggravating feature and moving down from that point for the mitigation which has been mentioned, the right minimum sentence of imprisonment would be 17 years' imprisonment, but we need then to consider the extent to which we should take into account the time spent, which we think we should.  So taking that time spent of 2 years 10 months which the defendant has spent in custody since his arrest, the minimum term that we settle upon is 14 years and 2 months' imprisonment. 

11.      The defendant accordingly is sentenced to imprisonment for life with an order of a minimum term of 14 years and 2 months.

12.      In relation to Counts 2 and 3 it is undoubtedly the case that with attempts of actual perverting of the course of justice the offences are very much more serious when the result of them is to implicate a third person in the commission of criminal offences.  That is clear from a number of cases that have been in this court and in the Court of Appeal and AG v Weston [1980] JLR 43 contains material from Le Quesne JA which sets out the rationale quite clearly in that respect.

13.      We do not consider that this present case falls quite into that category because although there is no doubt that in answer to the police when first questioned the defendant did pass comment about the deceased's relationship with her former boyfriend, the charge of perverting the course of justice does not engage that suggestion that the former boyfriend was guilty of murder.  Furthermore, the concealment of the body is more directed at a possibility of  suicide rather than murder by some other person.

14.      In some ways the offence of perverting the course of justice is an embellished denial of the count of murder.  We think the right way of dealing with this is to impose a prison sentence on each of Counts 2 and 3 of 2 years imprisonment which of course run concurrently with the life sentence which we have ordered.

Authorities

Criminal Justice (Life Sentences) (Jersey) Law 2014. 

AG v Weston [1980] JLR 43. 

AG v Newall and Newall 1994/164

AG v Baugh and Lawlor [2013] JRC 086

AG v Dias [2017] JRC 114

R v Tunney [2007] 1 Cr App R (S) 91

R v Genestin [2008] EWCA Crim 3099

R v Ibe [2009] EWCA Crim 1489

R v Dawkins [2009] 1 Cr App R (S) 103