Court

'Vilson Meshi's Death Was Not Manslaughter And My Client Was Framed', Lawyer Tells Pitsea Car Death Trial'
Fri 18th August 2017, Yellow Advertiser

THE DEATH of a man found in a torched car in Pitsea last year was not manslaughter, a lawyer has claimed.

Tony Badenoch QC – representing Keani Hobbs, 18, of Stagden Cross – said the death of Vilson Meshi in February 2016 was ‘ultimately, very sadly, a pointless, stupid, feckless accident’.

He claimed his client had been ‘framed’ by her teenage co-defendant and his family, telling jurors that the attempts to blame her were ‘evil’.

Mr Meshi was found dead in the back of his burnt out Audi A4 in Pincey Mead on February 27 last year. He had travelled to Basildon on the evening of February 26 as he was due to look after his children – who lived in Pincey Mead with his ex-partner – the following day.

Prosecutors claim he was sleeping in the car when Miss Hobbs and a second defendant – a 16-year-old boy granted anonymity by a court-imposed gagging order – threw a stolen marine distress flare inside and set it alight.

Both defendants are charged with Mr Meshi’s manslaughter and the theft of six marine distress flares from a boat at Pitsea Marina.

Mr Badenoch told jurors during his closing argument this morning that prosecutors had presented ‘a weak case’ with ‘substantial and significant gaps within it’.

He said prosecutors had failed to present any evidence that either Miss Hobbs or the boy – who each blame each other for throwing the flare – had known there was somebody sleeping inside the car at the time.

Without that evidence, he claimed, they could not find either defendant guilty of the charged crime.

He told jurors: “I say that this case just is not strong enough. Ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, it comes back to this; it comes back to being sure of what these two knew. You are ultimately being asked to infer from all the evidence that they must have known.

“The less you are sure that they knew he was in the car; that is the end of the case. That really is where it comes to.”

The boy took the stand on Monday to accuse Miss Hobbs of committing both crimes single-handedly.

He confessed to stealing Mr Meshi’s iPhone and car keys from inside the vehicle on the night of his death, but said he did not know Mr Meshi was asleep in the back at the time.

Miss Hobbs did not testify but Mr Badenoch told jurors that the evidence clearly pointed to her co-defendant.

He said that while the boy had blamed Miss Hobbs for the theft of the flares, a secret police bug hidden in his father’s car had recorded multiple comments suggesting it was actually the boy who had done so.

Describing the boy as a ‘dishonest thief’, he reminded jurors that the teen had prior convictions for theft and had changed his story. Miss Hobbs, he said, had not.

He told the court: “You haven’t heard from Keani… But that is not to say, ladies and gentlemen, that what Keani said hasn’t been tested at all. Because it has. It has been tested in material ways.”

He said the boy’s family had accused Miss Hobbs of being the hooded thief captured on CCTV on the night of Mr Meshi’s death, riding around the area on a bicycle and trying to break into cars. She had always protested her innocence. Then the boy changed his story and admitted he had been the thief all along.

Mr Badenoch said: “So she’s right. And it’s taken months to come out that she was – months – and he has been trying to point the finger at her for that until a very few weeks ago.”

The boy claimed on the stand this week that he led Miss Hobbs and others to Mr Meshi’s car, where Miss Hobbs lit the flare and threw it inside ‘just for fun’.

But Mr Badenoch said a secret bug placed in the boy’s father’s car had recorded an earlier comment that Miss Hobbs could not have been outside at roughly 2am, when Mr Meshi was killed, as she was indoors with some children.

He said the bug had also captured a comment saying 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 flares in her car and she had asked an acquaintance to get rid of it.

Mr Badenoch told the court: “He had the flare before, in the middle and after. The only evidence that the flare came to her is from him. That’s it. And you are asked to convict her of manslaughter on that.”

He added that the boy’s parents had been captured on the bug suggesting the boy blame it all on another teenage boy: “Say you were standing close. Say you didn’t know it was going to happen. Say it was [him] and you ran away.”

Mr Badenoch said the boy had parroted the story in court but simply replaced the other boy with Keani Hobbs. The story, he said, was ‘manufactured for the trial’.

Mr Badenoch said there had been evidence presented of attempts to destroy evidence and shift blame onto others. But he claimed the crime which was subject to the attempted cover-up was not the same crime the defendants were eventually charged with.

He explained: “You will find them running around and worrying about arson – a serious criminal offence. But the point is, you are deciding manslaughter – and there is a body of evidence on those tapes to suggest that they didn’t know about the person.”

Telling the jurors that the people captured on the secret police tape were ‘unguarded’ and ‘speaking freely’, he said one voice had been recorded stating: “They didn’t realise the man was in there. Then they are all running off thinking it was funny.”

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

He told the jury: “I’m going to submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that when you analyse these materials critically and carefully as a jury, collectively you will come to the conclusion that Keani Hobbs is not guilty of these offences.”

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