Pitakaka v Regina [2008] SBHC 2; HCSI-CRC 440 of 2007 (6 February 2008)

HIGH COURT OF SOLOMON ISLANDS

Criminal Case: 440 of 2007

BETWEEN:

CARRADINE PITAKAKA
The Applicant

AND:

REGINA
The Crown

Date of Hearing: 3 December 2007
Date of Decision: 6 February 2008

Mr Averre for C Pitakaka
Mr Talasasa for Crown

DECISION ON BAIL

Cameron PJ

1 The applicant applies for bail. He is about 23 years of age.

2 He currently faces 5 murder charges. Three of those (the Prayer murders) arise out of the same incident, and the other two are unrelated to that incident or to each other.

3 All the alleged murders appear to have taken place during the tensions around 2002 and 2003.

4 The applicant was initially arrested in August 2003 and along with others was charged with the murder of Brother Sado and as well the Marasa murders. He has remained in custody ever since.

5 Between March 2006 and September 2006 he was tried for the murder of Brother Sado and found guilty in a decision dated March 2007. In October 2007 the Court of Appeal set aside that conviction and ordered a re-trial. No date has yet been set for the retrial.

6 In October 2006, immediately following the Brother Sado trial which had spanned the previous 7 months, he was tried for the Marasa murders. That trial ended 5 months later in February 2007, and in a decision dated May 2007 he was found not guilty and acquitted.

7 In July 2004, while in custody awaiting those two trials, the applicant was charged with the murder of a Paul McSweeney. He was committed to trial on 30 September 2004 for murder and wrongful confinement, and a trial date has yet to be set.

8 Then in August 2004 the applicant was charged with 3 further murders (the Prayer murders). He was committed to trial on those murders also on 30 September 2004, and as with the Paul McSweeney charges, a trial date has yet to be set.

9 At the heart of Mr Averre’s thorough submissions for the applicant is the fact that the applicant has been in custody since August 2003 as a remand prisoner, except for the period between March and October 2007 when he was a sentenced prisoner in respect of the Brother Sado murder conviction (now set aside).

10 Mr Averre argues that such length of time as a remand prisoner is unreasonable by any standard, and is further exacerbated by the fact that no trial dates have been set for the McSweeney and Prayer murder charges, or for the retrial in respect of Brother Sado.
11 In determining whether such time is unreasonable I have to consider what has actually occurred in relation to the applicant’s various charges since his initial arrest.

12 The first point I note is that both sets of murder charges for which he was arrested in August 2003 (the Brother Sado and Marasa murders) have proceeded to trial and occupied a combined period of some 12 months – March 2006 to February 2007. The fact that no date for a retrial of the Brother Sado charge has yet been set is not surprising, given that a retrial was ordered as recently as October 2007.

13 Apart from that retrial, the charges against the applicant that await hearing dates (the McSweeney and Prayer murders) followed committals to trial on 30 September 2004. Accordingly, a period of nearly three and a half years has elapsed since those committals.

14 Considered in isolation, without regard to other relevant factors, I have no doubt that such period would be an unreasonable length of time to await hearings, and more so because no dates have yet been fixed for the trials.

15 However, as noted, 12 months of that period have been occupied in trials of the applicant on other murder charges (March 2006 to February 2007); and I am informed by Mr Averre that for a total period of about another 7 months (February to April 2005, August to September 2005, and April to May 2007) Messrs Keke and Cawa (both co-accused of the applicant in relation to the McSweeney and Prayer murders) were being tried in the High Court on other matters.

16 In other words, a period of about 19 months since the applicant’s committal on 30 September 2004 on the McSweeney and Prayer murders has been occupied in trials of the applicant and/or his co-accused.

17 Viewed in this way, I do not consider the overall delay as unreasonable in all the circumstances.

18 I have not overlooked the fact that neither the McSweeney or the Prayer murders have yet been allocated hearing dates. As listing meetings are held regularly and trial dates are often the subject of change, I am not prepared to infer that this necessarily means that there will be further lengthy delays in the hearings of these matters (including the re-trial).

19 As a further and related argument, Mr Averre argued that the applicant should be granted bail because there is no evidence before the Court that should he be granted bail there would be any real risk of re-offending, interference with witnesses, or flight.

20 In my assessment the applicant does not present as a risk in terms of re-offending or interference with witnesses. The offences for which he was and is charged arose from the tensions, quite a different time for this country. In addition, most of the witnesses as to fact are from the Weather Coast, and it is not proposed the applicant be permitted to return there.

21 However, in terms of absconding, in general terms the more serious the charges a person faces the more he may be perceived as a flight risk. The applicant faces no less than 5 of the most serious of charges, namely murder. He has no family responsibilities of which I am aware, and in all the circumstances I consider there is an appreciable risk that if released on bail he will abscond.

22 I exercise my discretion in declining to grant bail.

THE COURT