A St Peter man who confessed to stabbing his grandfather several times and striking him with a hammer has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, after initially telling police the blood found on him was from a fight with a friend the previous night.
Keon Curwen Downes, of Rose Hill, St Peter, denied murdering former retired police officer Grenville Cumberbatch on June 16, 2021 but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC who is prosecuting the matter along with State Counsel Paul Prescod, accepted the plea in the No. 4 Supreme Court, before reading the facts into evidence.
The court heard that 68-year-old Cumberbatch lived at Rose Hill with his common-law wife, who was Downes’ grandmother, and Downes.
On the morning of June 16, 2021 the grandmother left home to attend a medical appointment, while Downes, who was 21 at the time, left to seek work at a depot.
Upon returning, the woman found that Cumberbatch was not in his usual place reading the newspaper and saw blood droplets on the ground. She followed the bloody trail through the house, where she saw that the kitchen had been disturbed, before discovering Cumberbatch’s body in the backyard. She ran out to call for assistance from neighbours and police.
When police arrived, Downes was then present on the scene and an officer observed blood on his right ear and questioned him. The now convicted man said he had been in a fight the previous night. He was arrested on suspicion. Samples of the blood were taken along with photographs of lacerations on Downes’ hands and head.
Three days later, while in police custody, Downes confessed that he had gotten into a fight with his grandfather and had hit him with a hammer.
In his written statement, Downes described leaving home that morning, smoking a “spliff” with a man, going to the Maynards depot to ask for a job, and then heading back home.
The statement read: “I went in my bedroom and realise that my fan isn’t in the bedroom, so I went in the kitchen. Saw my fan in the kitchen. Saw my grandfather eating eggs, luncheon meat, tea and coffee. I ask him if that is my luncheon meat he eating. He didn’t answer me and I ask he what my fan doing in the kitchen. I don’t know if he was drunk or other but he ain’t answer me, so we start fighting. I push he and he push me and ain’t no cuffs nor nothing so, just push for push. I enter my bedroom and sit down and in about ten seconds, realise my grandfather was heading towards the washroom so I follow he, pick up a knife from the counter in the bathroom and the hammer. I stab him with the knife in his left collarbone and de knife bend and he try to grab the tile. I had the upper hand and I grab it first and hit him with the tile and I think that is where I get the cut from.”
Downes stated that he hit Cumberbatch with the hammer “three or four times”, before the deceased knocked it out of his hand. In the account, the now convicted man said he stabbed Cumberbatch several times with a pair of scissors before pushing him down the steps and “pelt the hammer outside towards him”.
He told police he took off his clothing and threw them in the shower before putting on other clothes, locking the house from the inside and leaving through his bedroom window. He had placed the other clothing in a bag and dumped them and the scissors along a track.
On his way home, he saw his grandmother, who informed him that ‘Grenville in the yard like he dead’.
During the interview, Downes said the fight started because Cumberbatch had thrown a plate at him and he was unaware of why the deceased did this, adding: “I don’t know if he was drunk or whatever.”
As to why he picked up the knife and hammer, Downes said: “I was vex because I know he was eating my luncheon meat and when I was asking questions he was not answering.”
A post-mortem ruled that the cause of death was traumatic head injury and multiple cuts, lacerations, and stab wounds with haemorrhage and shock.
After the facts were accepted, the acting DPP explained the reasoning behind the State’s acceptance of the manslaughter plea, noting that it was based on the element of provocation.
Seale told the court: “The average person sometimes does not understand and believes that in certain incidents, it should be murder. Yes we recognise that the injuries were many, it was a gruesome act. Some people would look at it as disrespect that you would raise your hand against the grandfather that raised you but none of these things tantamount to murder in law.”
“We are looking at it from the basis of provocation – things said or done by the deceased that caused the accused to react in a particular manner. His evidence that his grandfather first ate his luncheon meat and then gave him attitude in that he would not respond to him. Regardless of how we feel about that there is no evidence to the contrary. This is something that happened in the privacy of the home so I cannot contradict it by any other witness or evidence so regardless of if we believe that it was a fanciful excuse or otherwise, I am bound to operate by the law.”
Defence attorney Safiya Moore requested pre-sentence and prison reports, and Justice Laurie-Anne Smith-Bovell adjourned the case until September 18 for sentencing submissions.
(JB)
