The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal has affirmed the 25-year sentence of a man who was convicted of robbing a married couple armed with a handgun six years ago.

In 2015, Paul Bellizar was charged with the murders of Barry and Sheena Johnson of Grand Bahama as well as the armed robbery of Mr Johnson, which occurred in September of that year.

At the time, he launched an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeal challenging the voluntary bill of indictment (VBI) during the course of the trial. However, his appeal was not heard before the trial ended.

In May 2018, Bellizar was found guilty of armed robbery and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

He then applied to the court to appeal his conviction and sentence, but failed to do so within the required time frame. Six months later, he filed a notice for an application for an extension of time within which to appeal.

After reserving their decision, Justices Jon Isaacs, Maureen Crane-Scott and Milton Evans dismissed Bellizar’s appeal on the judge’s interlocutory decision and affirmed the conviction and sentence handed down to him after he was found guilty of armed robbery. They did this after ruling that there was no merit in Bellizar’s proposed challenge.

“No fault can be found with the judge’s determination that ‘a substantially true case has been made out on the statements filed with the VBI,” Justice Isaacs noted.

“There is great doubt that a court in which a trial has commenced can entertain an application to quash a VBI on the basis of insufficiency of evidence. It is in only the rarest of cases should a trial judge embark upon an inquiry into the sufficiency of evidence even before a trial starts, where the originating process to have the person before the court is a VBI; and even then, the application should be made by a properly constituted motion well in advance of the trial date, certainly not after the jury has been empanelled and the defendant placed into their charge.”

He also said: “There is no merit in the intended appellant’s proposed challenge that no true case is disclosed on the papers forming the voluntary bill. The CPC states that the intended respondent is merely to be satisfied that ‘the case disclosed by the statements is, to the best of his knowledge, information and belief, substantially a true case.’ It may be seen, therefore, that once there is some evidence in the witness statements and/or confession statements placed before the intended respondent which purports to show that an accused person is involved in the commission of an indictable offence, the intended appellant cannot be faulted if he was to execute and file a statement pursuant to section 258(2)(b) of the CPC.”