(CNS): Devon Anglin (36) has been denied leave to appeal a 30-year life sentence he is serving for the murder of Carlos Webster (35) in 2009. The three-decade prison term is the statutory recommended time for any life sentence for murder, and in a judgment delivered on Tuesday following an application last year, the court upheld the term. The high court found there was nothing to support a reduction in the sentence, which in light of tariff rulings applied since his sentencing, could justifiably have been even higher.

Anglin, originally from West Bay and believed to be a member of the Birch Tree Hill Gang, gunned down Webster, who was said to be a member of the rival Logswood Gang, in the middle of the dance floor at what was then the Next Level nightclub in front of dozens of witnesses. Following an altercation with Webster, Anglin had retrieved a gun from the men’s bathroom that had been smuggled into the club to evade the metal detectors.

He then shot Webster in the head and fired two other shots, one of which injured an innocent bystander, before he fled the scene. Anglin, who denied being the gunman, was convicted in 2012, largely on testimony given by anonymous witnesses, as the police battled to find anyone who saw the killing willing to come forward.

Anglin appealed the conviction for murder twice. First, he argued that the identification evidence was poor and that the witnesses should not have been granted anonymity so their evidence should not have been admitted. But that appeal failed. On a second attempt, after admitting that he was indeed the gunman but claiming that he had been provoked, he pressed for the conviction for murder to be replaced by manslaughter. However, that effort also failed.

In the most recent appeal, Anglin was looking to reduce his time in jail, arguing that not only had he been provoked, which should justify a cut in the time he must serve, but also that he was suffering from serious mental health problems as a result of a major head injury from a machete sustained during an attack by several men when he was just 18 years old.

Based on fresh evidence from Dr Marc Lockhart, a psychiatrist from Behavioural Health Associates Cayman, and psychologist Dr Liezel Anguelova, Anglin argued that at the time he shot Webster, he was suffering the effects of brain damage as a result of that attack and lost control of his ability to restrain himself. This would move his case into the ‘exceptional’ category, justifying a cut in the minimum time he must serve before he is eligible to be considered for parole.

But given the history of submissions made by Anglin over the years, the appeal court judges found they could not rely on any account he now gives as to the events leading up to the murder. In addition, during his original sentencing, heard by former chief justice Anthony Smellie, his attorney had accepted that this was a cold-blooded killing.

“It was in our judgment open to him as the trial judge to approach the facts in the way that he did,” the court found in this most recent appeal. “In the final analysis, whatever the extent of the previous provocation, this was the deliberate murder of someone with a firearm. While there was no premeditation in terms of planning, the Applicant, when in the restroom, had, or arranged for, access to a gun which he deliberately decided to use in order to kill someone. This was, in other words, no spur of the moment offence.”

Denying the appeal, the court said the chief justice had been entitled to conclude there was no reason to interfere with the statutory minimum of 30 years.

See the full judgment on the judicial judgments register here criminal appeal #021 of 2017.