Woman in St Thomas family brawl spared jail as appeal court suspends 18-month sentence

The Court of Appeal has upheld the unlawful wounding conviction of a woman who attacked her sister on in 2023, but suspended her 18-month prison term for three years, sparing her immediate incarceration.

The court ruled on Friday that the original custodial term was disproportionate to that of her co-convicts. The appeal was filed in 2024 and arguments heard in December 2025. 

The judgment brings to a close the appeal of Carla May Crooks, who was convicted in the St Thomas Parish Court on May 14, 2024, following an altercation on January 1, 2023 involving her half-sister. 

Crooks, along with her mother Curline Crooks and father Leroy Crooks, was found guilty of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Wilma Leach, the complainant, who held legal title to the property on which the incident occurred. 

While the mother received a non-custodial sentence and Crooks a sentence not requiring immediate incarceration, Carla Crooks was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment at hard labour, a disparity the appeal court ultimately found was difficult to justify.

The prosecution's case was that Carla and her parents entered the complainant's premises uninvited and mounted a sustained attack. 

Leach testified that she was placed in a chokehold, pushed into a fence, beaten inside her home and in her yard, and later struck on the back of the head with a stick by Carla Crooks. She sustained a fractured skull, a broken incisor, multiple bruises, and a swollen eye, according to court records. 

The defence maintained that Carla acted in protection of her father after Leach struck him with a machete. 

But video evidence, reviewed by the appeal court, contradicted that account in material respects. 

The footage showed Carla walking with a stick before Mr Crooks threw the first stone, delivering blows to the complainant's back and hand during the stoning, and then running in to deliver a final blow to the back of Leach's head while her father and the complainant were engaged in a tussle.

The court found that the parish court judge had properly directed herself on the law of self-defence, correctly identifying the central question as whether the appellant's blows were defensive or retaliatory. 

It noted that the trial judge accepted the complainant as credible and reliable, corroborated by medical evidence and the video recordings, and was entitled to reject the claim of self-defence.

On the allegation of judicial bias, which centred on notes the parish court judge had inserted into her recording of evidence, the appeal court found no real possibility of partiality. 

The notations, the court held, reflected an evaluative process rather than a closed mind, though it cautioned that such working notes should not appear in the official appellate record, as their inclusion "may give rise to misunderstanding or unnecessary grounds of appeal."

The appeal court, however, took issue with the sentencing disparity. 

While acknowledging that Carla had delivered the blow that fractured the complainant's skull, the appeal court found that the roles of the three participants were not so materially different as to justify widely divergent outcomes. 

“We are satisfied that the sentencing exercise was grounded in statute and established principles from case law … and broadly accords with comparable cases,” said Justice Marcia Dunbar-Green, who wrote the unanimous 27-page opinion. 

“We are, nonetheless, concerned by the significant disparity between the sentence imposed on the appellant and those imposed on her co-accused, Mr and Mrs Crooks, particularly as the learned judge of the parish court did not regard their respective roles as materially different.”

Dunbar Green also stated that “while we acknowledge the advanced age of the appellant’s co-accused, both being in their seventies, this factor, though important, should not justify such a wide disparity in sentencing outcomes”. 

The panel of judges also included Justices Paulette Williams and Nicole Simmons. 

It also noted that additional mitigating factors had not been expressly addressed by the trial judge, including Carla's role as primary caregiver and breadwinner for a young dependent, the circumstances precipitating the offence, and prospects for rehabilitation and family reconciliation.

Adopting a starting point of 18 months, with aggravating and mitigating factors applied, the court arrived at the same term, 18 months, but ordered it suspended for three years, with a supervision order of 12 months.

Carla Crooks was represented by attorney Leroy Equiano. The Crown was represented by Kathrina Watson and Ashley Innis.

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