Evon Jack v The King
Mr. Jack was convicted on 17 May 2013 for sexual offences against a child. The offences were said to have been committed on 6 May 2011. As a result of the convictions, he was sentenced on 14 June 2013 to serve concurrent terms of imprisonment at hard labour, as follows:
a. 15 years for carnal abuse.
b. 5 years for buggery.
c. 2 years for indecent assault.
Mr. Jack applied for leave to appeal against his convictions and sentences. A transcript of the trial judge’s summation to the jury was delivered to the Court of Appeal in November 2019. A single judge of appeal reviewed the transcript and refused Mr. Jack’s application for leave to appeal against convictions. The learned single judge of appeal, however, granted him leave to appeal against his sentences.
As was his right, Mr. Jack renewed his application for leave to appeal against his conviction. Over eight years after his conviction, the transcript of the evidence, which was adduced at his trial, has not been produced. All that has been produced to the court, as emanating from the trial, is the transcript of the trial judge’s summation to the jury.
As a result of the failure to produce that transcript, Mr. Jack, in his renewed application, has supplemented his original proposed grounds of appeal with other grounds, which he sought leave to argue. Those supplemental grounds complain about the fairness of the appellate process, and breaches of his constitutional right to a review of his conviction within a reasonable time.
During the course of the application for leave to appeal, Mr. Jack also sought leave for permission to adduce his affidavit, filed on 30 April 2021, as fresh evidence, before the court. The court granted the application and considered the affidavit, except for certain portions, which, for various reasons, were ruled inappropriate for these purposes.
On 30 July 2021, at the conclusion of the hearing of Mr. Evon Jack’s application for leave to appeal against his conviction, and appeal against sentence, the court, decided that it was not possible to have a fair review of Mr. Jack’s conviction.
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