Female killer’s final appeal lodged in the Privy Council
BLAST FROM THE PAST – BY FRANCIS JOSEPH
Convicted killer Natasha De Leon believes she has served her time and should be released from prison.
Her plight went before the High Court and the Court of Appeal, but she lost. Now, De Leon has gone before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
Her application for permission to appeal has been filed. No date has been set for the hearing of the application.
It is De Leon’s last-ditch attempt to walk out of the prison.
What exactly is the issue before the Privy Council?
The question is – Does 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 Case
This is an appeal against the decision of Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas, delivered on the 31st of January 2024, to decline jurisdiction to review the sentence of “life imprisonment not to be released before the expiration of 20 years”, which was imposed on De Leon on the 1st of March 2001.
On the 5th of February 2001, De Leon was convicted of manslaughter in relation to the death of Lambert Dookoo.
On the 1st of March 2001, she was sentenced to life imprisonment and was ordered to serve a term of 20 years before she could be considered for release.
Her appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on the 18th of February 2003 and the court ordered the sentence to commence from that date. By letter dated the 17th of May 2022, counsel for De Leon wrote to the Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court requesting the High Court to review her sentence.
The judge declined to undertake a review of De Leon’s sentence of life imprisonment not to be released before 20 years. On the 6th of February 2024, De Leon filed a Notice of Appeal challenging the decision of the judge.
In his decision, Justice St Clair-Douglas said the review was for the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon (the Mercy Committee), not a judge. De Leon then appealed.
In her appeal, De Leon argued that her constitutional right to a fair hearing by an independent tribunal was infringed, and challenged the judge’s ruling that the review process under Rule 281 of the Prison Rules was appropriate.
De Leon’s attorney, Peter Carter, contended that Justice St Clair-Douglas had the inherent jurisdiction to review the sentence, as the court maintained 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.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, represented by Tracy Vidale, opposed the appeal, saying De Leon had no right of appeal in this context and did not challenge her detention’s legality through proper legal avenues.
The Court of Appeal, presided over by Justices Gillian Lucky, Malcolm Holdip, and Carla Brown-Antoine, asked the attorneys to consider that clemency through a Presidential Pardon was a mechanism for ending a life sentence, while also suggesting that a constitutional challenge or judicial review could be other avenues to challenge continued detention after a minimum term has elapsed.
Vidale invited the judges to define the parameters of a life sentence in Trinidad and Tobago.
In giving her decision, Justice Carla Brown-Antoine said, “In this case, this matter was brought before the judge by way of a letter written to the Registrar by Counsel on behalf of the Appellant.
In other cases of review of sentences, the matter is listed before the court by the Registrar. We are of the opinion that if there was a power of review of life sentences, a system whereby the Registrar of the Supreme Court lists this matter before a Judge of the High Court is not inappropriate.”
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on July 22, 2025.
Two More Murders
In addition to the Dookoo murder, 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. She was also charged and convicted of the brutal murder of Princes Town taxi driver Chandranath Maharaj in 1993.
For Maharaj’s murder, Justice 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.
Having already spent 29 years in prison, De Leon was left with less than two years to serve with hard labour.
Although Vidale argued the appeal for the Office of the DPP on January 21, 2024, the groundwork of submissions was done by special prosecutor Randall Hector, whose work was acknowledged by the judges. Hector was shot dead after leaving church on December 31, 2024 on Stanmore Avenue, Port-of-Spain.
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.
In March 2023, the High Court ordered that 23 convicted killers whose sentences had been commuted to life could be re-sentenced by the court.
These orders were in keeping with the Privy Council ruling on commuted life sentences for murder convicts in the case of Naresh Boodram.
The 23 convicted killers were: Mervyn Parris, Mervyn Edmund, Kenrick London, Denny Baptiste, Parbatee Dass, Haniff Hillaire, Neil Hernandez, Peter Benjamin, Anthony Allan Garcia, Robert Taylor, Foster Serrette, Natasha De Leon, Samuel Winchester, Rodney Davis, Alfred Frederick, Steve Mungroo, Darrin Roger Thomas, Gangadeen Tahaloo, Amir Bowlah, Phillip Chotolal, Wilson Prince, Bruce Herrera, and Amir Mohammed.
