This Is Guernsey

CRAIG ROUGET is not a murderer, the Guernsey Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

And today Rouget, 19, is due to find out whether his appeal – to have his conviction either overturned or reduced to manslaughter – has succeeded.

Advocate Peter Ferbrache told the appeal hearing that at Rouget’s trial, following the fatal knifing of James Dean in the High Street in September 2006, Judge Russell Finch had misdirected the jurats on issues of self-defence and provocation. Advocate Ferbrache said that the appeal court had the power to substitute his client’s murder conviction with one of manslaughter.

‘They [jurats] were told that if they considered he [Rouget] was the aggressor, then that was the end of the self-defence matter,’ he said. ‘That isn’t the law.’

He claimed that Judge Finch had also failed to give the bench any help on the issue of the gravity of provocation and had told them they should limit their consideration to the first of the two fights his client and Dean, 21, had had on that Saturday evening.

Jersey Bailiff Sir Philip Bailhache presided over the appeal with David Vaughan, QC, and Dame Heather Steel assisting.

Dame Heather told Advocate Ferbrache that it was not unusual in courts for counsel to say, ‘No M’Lord, you are wrong’, when they were making directions on points of law.

Advocate Ferbrache said the appeal was based on points he had considered after the trial, in July, had concluded.

Crown Advocate Fiona Russell argued that Judge Finch had represented the law correctly on the self-defence matter and there was no more he could have done.

‘If there is any argument, it is over the subjective/objective element,’ she said.

On provocation, she said Judge Finch had again done his job by directing the jurats back to Advocate Ferbrache’s submissions.

‘Here is a judge saying “look and listen to anything the defence says which might amount to provocation”,’ she said.

The judge had advised both counsel throughout to flag up any perceived errors to the court and Advocate Russell said she had found no need to do that.

‘You may want to consider how significant any error was if counsel did not think it appropriate to raise the fact [at the time] that there was one.’

The court will deliver either a decision or reasoned judgement.