Last Updated on Sunday, 11 October 2026, 15:21 by Written By Denis Chabrol
Former People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR)/A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) member Daniel Seeram, who switched political loyalty to the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) more than one year ago, is appealing a conviction of assaulting his ex-wife causing grievous bodily harm.
He is also appealing High Court judge Joy Persaud-Singh’s refusal to conduct a judicial review of Magistrate Abigail Gibbs’ decision to remand him to prison until November 2 when he would be sentenced after several reports are filed and examined.
A Guyana Prison Service official on Sunday confirmed to Demerara Waves Online News that police handed handed over Mr Seeram to prison officers at the Lot 12 Camp Street prison on Friday at 4:35 PM.
The filing of the appeals comes as uncertainty surrounds the whereabouts of Mr Seeram whom Magistrate Abigail Gibbs remanded to custody pending sentencing early next month. After the September 2025 general and regional elections, Mr Seeram, a former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) captain, was appointed by President Irfaan Ali as national coordinator of the border protection unit.
Mr Seeram, a former Region Four Chairman on the APNU+AFC ticket between 2020 and 2025, wants the Guyana Court of Appeal to set aside the High Court’s refusal to conduct a judicial review and that an order be issued to quash the magistrate’s decision to remand him, and that he be granted bail on “appropriate” conditions. Interested parties in this appeal are the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General.
Separately In the notice of appeal against the magistrate’s conviction filed by his lawyer, Nigel Hughes, Mr Seeram alleged that he was assaulted and that he first went to the police station to file a report and his ex-wife arrived as he was leaving. “The learned Magistrate failed to give any weight to the undisputed evidence that the Appellant was the first to report the incident to the police, complaining that he had been assaulted and pointing to his injuries,” the court document states.
The notice of appeal states, among other things, that magistrate Gibbs erred in law by declining to rely on any part of sergeant Dunn’s evidence and she did not consider the parts of his evidence that were independently supported. These are that Mr Seeram reported to the police first, that the apartment was in disorder, that a broken chain was shown to him, and that he had visible injuries.
In the appeal to the Guyana Court of Appeal, with Detective Lance Corporal, Shazim Khan being the respondent, Mr Seeram said the magistrate found that his ex-wife was a “witness of truth” without considering material inconsistences and omissions in her evidence.
The document states that they included her claims of injuries to her right wrist and the right side of her breast, and injury to her temple were not recorded in an exhibit; she failed to mention the firearm in her first statement and her disclosure of it about one month later after being contacted by the police; she failed to produce the recording she said she was making or the phone she said she gave the police, and the conflict between her account and that of Rural Constable Cheeks about how the medical certificate was handled.
Other bases for appealing magistrate Gibbs’ conviction include finding Mr Seeram evasive and in drawing adverse inferences from it. The lawyer says that that finding rested on questions about whether a statement he gave to the police as a complainant ought to have anticipated and rebutted the allegation against him. “Such questioning carried little weight and was capable of causing genuine confusion,” the notice of appeal states.
Further, Mr Hughes wants the Court of Appeal to find that magistrate Gibbs erred in admitting and relying on the complainant’s medical certificate. The lawyer says that certificate was tendered through Rural Constable Cheeks, who was not present at the examination and could not identify the examining doctor. “The maker was not called,” the document states. He says the requirements of the Evidence Act, Chapter 5:03 were not shown to have been met. Further and alternatively, the document also states that the magistrate erred in giving Exhibit B full weight on the element of actual bodily harm and on consistency with the complainant’s account, without considering that it could not be tested.
Further, Mr Seeram, through his lawyer, says the magistrate also erred in fact in relying on Exhibits Al to A3 to find an injury that the contemporaneous medical record did not show. He says the photographs were taken the day after the medical examination by a photographer who was not called, and there was no record of their receipt by the police.
The learned Magistrate erred in law in refusing to reconsider the order remanding the Appellant pending sentence.
“The errors set out above, taken individually and together, materially affected the learned Magistrate’s assessment of credibility and her conclusion that the prosecution had proved the charge beyond reasonable
doubt. A substantial miscarriage of justice has resulted,” states the court document.
