Decision due today on Rouget murder appeal

Tuesday 1st April 2008, 2:30PM BST.

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.