Man convicted of killing ex-girlfriend at Oakland Apartments denied permission to file appeal

The United Kingdom-based Privy Council has denied an application for permission to appeal by 47-year-old Jamaican businessman Steven Causewell who was convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend at her home located at Oakland Apartments.

Causewell was found guilty by a jury in 2016 for killing 28-year-old Nadia Mitchell in 2008.

He was sentenced in October 2016 to life imprisonment and ordered to serve 20 years before he is eligible for parole.

Causewell will now have to continue serving that sentence since his application was denied.

Mitchell's body was found in the yard of the gated apartment complex in July 2008 with 27 injuries, 19 of which were inflicted before she died.

Prosecutors Paula Llewellyn and Yanique Gardener Brown painted Causewell at the trial as a scorned, obsessive, and controlling lover and described his relationship with Mitchell as a fatal attraction.

At the time of her death, Mitchell was in another relationship after ending her romance with Causewell.

Causewell had admitted visiting the deceased at her apartment on the night of the incident.

He said that he and the deceased had a fight and that she stormed out of the apartment.

Causewell said he later found her lying motionless in the yard and took her to hospital.

In expressing sorrow at her death, he said at the trial that he was not responsible for the murder, which he described as an “unfortunate and tragic situation.”

He appealed against his conviction but the Court of Appeal ruled in November 2020 that there was no basis on which the conviction ought to be disturbed. 

He then applied to the Privy Council for leave to appeal but his application was denied in October this year.

“There is no appeal as of right based on the Constitution. Permission to appeal should be refused. There is no risk that a serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred,” the Privy Council ruled when it refused Causewell's application on October 3.

- Barbara Gayle

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