The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in a majority decision today, freed Jarvis Small of the 2010 murder of his 16-year-old stepdaughter Neesa Gopaul, while upholding mother Bibi Shareema-Gopaul’s conviction but reducing her prison time to 30 years.

The Court in allowing Small’s appeal ruled that the he was gravely prejudiced by a joint trial.

It said that Bibi Gopaul’s sentence was “grossly disproportionate and manifestly excessive.”

The ruling was handed down by Justice Denys Barrow in the presence of President of the CCJ, Justice Adrian Saunders.

In 2015, trial local Judge Navindra Singh sentenced Bibi Gopaul to 106 years in prison and her ex-lover Jarvis Small to 96 years after a jury found them guilty of killing the 16-year whose body was found in a suitcase submerged in a creek near the Linden/Soesdyke Highway in October, 2010.

However, the duo appealed their convictions, and the Court of Appeal, though upholding those convictions, reduced their sentences to 45 years each. Dissatisfied, Small and Sharima-Gopaul moved to the CCJ.

At the level of the High Court, Small, through his attorney had applied for separate trials from that of Shareema-Gopaul, however, the application was refused by the trial Judge.

However, in its ruling today, the CCJ said Small was gravely prejudiced, and the evidence upon which he was convicted could not stand.

He said the Court was satisfied that the trial judge should have upheld the submission that there was no case for Small to answer, and should have directed his acquittal.

The State had heavily relied on evidence provided by Simone Diane De Nobrega, a former cellmate of Shareema-Gopaul, but Justice Barrow stated that such evidence should not have been placed before a jury trying the case of Small.

In the case of Shareema-Gopaul, the CCJ found that there was no substantial miscarriage of justice at both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

However, the CCJ ruled that Bibi Gopaul’s sentencing was not fair and justice.

The CCJ said that the sentencing was degrading. It said while the Court of Appeal reduced Shareema-Gopaul’s sentence to 45 years, it did not discount pre-trial custody.

 Ruling that a sentence of 45 years was still manifestly excessive, the CCJ revised Shareema-Gopaul sentence to 30-years, however, minus 5 years for pre-trial custody. Shareema-Gopaul will be eligible patrol after 15 years.

In arriving at the sentence, the CCJ took into account the fact that it was a murder of a minor, a murder of a child by her parent, and also the manner in which Gopaul had been murdered and her body disposed.

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