By FRANCIS JOSEPH
Woman killer, Natasha De Leon, has lost her final bid for freedom.
On March 2, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council refused her application for permission to appeal, saying “Special leave is refused as the appeal does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance, nor is there a risk that a serious miscarriage of justice has occurred.”
The British judges – Lords Reed, Leggatt, and Doherty – ended De Leon’s final hopes of freedom anytime soon.
So what was the issue before the Privy Council?
Q: Did the High Court have jurisdiction to review De Leon’s sentence of life imprisonment after the expiration of the minimum term she was required to serve before becoming eligible for release?
The Facts
In 2001, De Leon was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment not to be released before the expiration of 20 years. On the 18th of February 2003, the Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal against conviction and ordered the sentence to commence from the date of the dismissal of the appeal.
By letter dated the 17th of May 2022, after the minimum term of 20 years had expired, De Leon wrote to the Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court requesting a judge of the High Court review her life sentence.
On the 31st of January 2024, Justice St. Clair-Douglas declined to review the sentence. The Court of Appeal dismissed De Leon’s appeal, upholding the High Court’s decision. She then turned to the Privy Council.
On June 26, 2025, the Court of Appeal sided with Justice St Hayden Clair-Douglas.
Former High Court Judge Paula-Mea Weekes
She had asked Justices of Appeal Gillian Lucky, Malcolm Holdip and Carla Brown-Antoine to review her sentence imposed by then-High Court judge Paula-Mae Weekes for the murder of taxi driver Lambert Dookoo in March 1993.
With two years and a month left on her sentence for the brutal slaying of Princes Town taxi driver Chandranath Maharaj, De Leon had also asked the Appeal Court judges to order her release forthwith.
De Leon and her brother Andre de Leon had been convicted of manslaughter for Dookoo’s murder, which took place a month after Maharaj’s murder. Justices Weekes ordered de Leon to serve a life sentence and not to be released for less than 20 years for Dookoo’s murder.
On January 31, 2024, Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas re-sentenced de Leon for the Maharaj murder in keeping with previous rulings by the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal.
De Leon and her common-law husband Darrin Thomas were tried and convicted on November 9, 1995, for Maharaj’s murder and were sentenced to death.
Their convictions were then commuted to life in prison in 2008.
Woman killer, Natasha De Leon
In March 2023, de Leon and Thomas were among 23 convicted killers (whose sentences had been commuted to life) who benefited from a High Court ruling ordering their re-sentencing by the court after the Privy Council ruled on commuted life sentences for murder convicts in the case of Naresh Boodram.
At her r-esentencing hearing for Maharaj’s murder, de Leon’s attorney Peter Carter had invited Justice St Clair-Douglas to review her sentence for Dookoo’s murder.
Justice St Clair-Douglas refused to entertain de Leon’s application. He said that review was for the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon (the Mercy Committee), not a judge.
In her appeal, de Leon argued that her constitutional right to a fair hearing by an independent tribunal was infringed. She challenged the judge’s ruling that the review process under Rule 281 of the Prison Rules was appropriate.
Carter contended that Justice St Clair-Douglas had the inherent jurisdiction to review the sentence, as the court maintains oversight once the minimum term has been served.
Carter further argued that leaving such reviews to the executive would violate the principle of separation of powers.
However, in their ruling, the Appeal Court judges held that Rule 281 was the procedure available for review. That rule provides for a review of the case of every prisoner serving a life sentence every four years by the prison authorities.
The Appeal Court also held that the Privy Council rulings in the cases of Lendore and Boodram were binding.
Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas
Lendore dealt with the lawfulness of presidential pardons and affirmed that the substituted sentences of life imprisonment were legitimate as they offered some prospect of release, while in Boodram, the Privy Council held that convicted killers, who could no longer be executed because of delays, were not limited to automatic life sentences but were entitled to have their cases reviewed.
At the hearing of de Leon’s appeal in January 2025, the judges acknowledged the case’s precedent-setting nature and invited attorneys to consider that clemency through a presidential pardon was a mechanism for ending a life sentence.
They also suggested that a constitutional challenge or judicial review could be other avenues to challenge continued detention after a “minimum term” had elapsed.
In addition to the two murders, de Leon was also charged with the murder of Ruben Paul Jaskaran, which took place on December 28, 1992.
The prosecution of that matter was stayed by then-acting judge Ian Stuart Brook on March 3, 2006, because of a 13-year delay. His ruling came after the Privy Council reinstated the death penalty as the only punishment for murder.
For Maharaj’s murder, St Clair-Douglas imposed a 33-year sentence, which, he said, was her substituted sentence. The sentence was ordered to run from the date of her conviction.
