Court

Jury Sent Out To Deliberate In Vilson Meshi Manslaughter Trial
Tues 22nd August 2017, Yellow Advertiser

THE JURY in the Vilson Meshi manslaughter trial had been considering its verdicts for two days as the YA went to press on Wednesday.

Jurors were sent out to begin deliberations on Monday afternoon after Judge Patricia Lynch QC summed up the law and the evidence following a three-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Late last week, a lawyer representing Keani Hobbs, 18, of Stagden Cross, claimed his client had been ’framed’ by her teenage co-defendant and his family as part of an ‘evil’ plot to evade justice.

Mr Meshi, 31, was found dead in his burnt out Audi A4 in Pincey Mead, Pitsea, on February 27, 2016.

Prosecutors say he was asleep in the car when the two defendants – Miss Hobbs and a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named – threw a stolen marine distress flare inside.

Mr Meshi had driven to Basildon from his new home in Glossop on the evening of February 26, as he was due to look after his children – who lived in Pincey Mead with their mother – the next day.

Jurors last week heard both defendants blame each other for both crimes on the indictment – the theft of six flares from Pitsea Marina and the manslaughter of Vilson Meshi.

The boy took the stand and claimed he had witnessed Miss Hobbs steal the flares from a boat.

He admitted stealing Mr Meshi’s iPhone and car keys from inside his car on the night of his death, but he claimed he did not see Mr Meshi asleep in the back and said Miss Hobbs had thrown the flare into the car some time later.

Miss Hobbs did not take the stand but her defence barrister Tony Badenoch QC used his closing speech to blame her co-defendant.

He accused prosecutors of bringing ‘a weak case’ with ‘substantial and significant gaps in it’.

Describing the boy as ’the dishonest thief’, he reminded jurors that the boy had multiple prior convictions for theft and burglary.

He said the boy had originally accused Miss Hobbs of being the thief on the night of Mr Meshi’s death, only admitting his guilt weeks before the trial.

Mr Badenoch said evidence captured on a police bug – hidden inside the boy’s father’s car – had captured a comment that Miss Hobbs could not have been present when the flare was thrown into the car as she was at home with some children.

It also captured a comment that the boy had returned to Mr Meshi’s car not with Miss Hobbs but with ‘the boys’.

The same bug, said Mr Badenoch, had captured the boy’s mother saying he had left one of the stolen flares in her car and she had panicked and asked an acquaintance to get rid of it.

The lawyer told the jury: “He had the flare before, in the middle and after. The only evidence that the flare came to her is from him. And you are asked to convict her of manslaughter on that.”

Mr Badenoch also argued that Mr Meshi’s death was not actually manslaughter.

He claimed that if prosecutors had not proved either defendant knew Mr Meshi was in the car, the offence of manslaughter had not been proven.

He said: “If they didn’t know, or they might not have known, ladies and gentlemen, they are both not guilty.

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