Appeal from
conviction by High Court.
Murder,
contra. sec. 319 Criminal
Code.
Held:
Relevant witnesses not having
been called and evidence heard
being
insufficient to support
conviction the appeal is
allowed.
The facts are
sufficiently set out in the
judgment. C. N. S. Pollard
for Crown.
Appellant in
person.
The appeal
was allowed on the 10th August,
1938, and on the 15th August,
1938, the following joint
reasons for judgment were
delivered :-
KINGDON, C.J.,
NIGERIA, CAREY AND GRAHAM PAUL,
JJ.
The appellant
on 27th April, 1938, was by the
High Court of the Calabar-Aba
Division held at Opobo convicted
of the murder of one Akpan Akpan
U do Iko and sentenced to death.
He applied to this Court for
leave to appeal against his
conviction. Crown Counsel did
not oppose the application and
leave to appeal was granted on
10th August, 1938-the appeal
being heard on the same date and
the conviction quashed. We then
intimated that the reasons for
our decision would be given
later.
The Crown
case against the appellant was
that he unlawfully killed the
deceased at or just outside the
deceased's house; and that the
killing was without any
provocation by the deceased and
without any excuse at all.
The
appellant's case was that he
wounded the deceased under quite
different circumstances; that
the deceased in company with
three of his (deceased's)
brothers came to the house of
the accused and with· no
provocation whatever there
attacked him (accused); that in
the course of that attack one of
the deceased's brothers Udo
Akpan Udo Iko with a stick
knocked out two of the accused's
teeth and that the deceased and
his brothers otherwise seriously
assaulted him; that the accused,
being so beset and angered by th~
unprovoked attack on him,
defended himself by picking up a
matchet and using it against the
people attacking him; and that
the deceased wa3 wounded by the
accused in these circumstances.
From the
evidence it appears that the
accused has throughout
consistently told the same
story, to the Chief of his town,
to the Police, and to the
Magistrate at the preliminary
inquiry. It is Thompson manifest
that in an adequate
investigation of the charge of
murder against the accused the
three survivors of the accused's
alleged. assailants were not
only material but essential
witnesses. Yet not one of these
three people was called by the
Crown. Nor is there any
evidence that any steps were
taken to find and call any of
these people though the accused
took the police to their
mother's Graham house. It is the
duty of the Crown to call all
known material witnesses,
whether in favour of the Crown
case or not, and where,as in
this case, the Crown had notice
of the accused's most material
allegation against these three
named people it was the clear
duty of those responsible for
the prosecution to call these
three people if the accused's
allegation against them was to
be contested. As it was, the
Court below rejected the sworn
allegation of the accused
without any of the people
concerned being brought forward
to deny it and to be subjected
to cross-examination by the
accused.
The accused
says that he voluntarily
reported the matter to his chief
who advised him to report to the
police and that he did so. The
Police Constable in charge of
the local Police Station was not
called to contradict this and on
the evidence therefore the
accused's statement must be
accepted that he voluntarily
reported the matter.
So much for
the evidence not called
by the prosecution.
When one
examines the evidence which
was called by the
prosecution it appears to be
quite insufficient to justify
the conviction. All the
eye-witnesses for the
prosecution were members of the
deceased's family and one of
them (Johnson Akpan Udo Iko)
says in regard to the accused "
We had heard something " about
him and we went and asked him
why he had invoked juju "
against us." There is not a
scrap of evidence that the
accused had in fact invoked juju
against the deceased's family
but if the members of the
family, even wrongly, believed
that the accused had done so
their evidence against the
accused must be received with
caution. Particularly does this
observation apply to the
evidence of the deceased's widow
Adiaha Akpan who said she knew
of no quarrel between the
accused and her husband. It does
not 'appear from the summing up
that the Court below appreciated
this caution necessary in regard
to the evidence of members of
the deceased's family.
The main
question of fact was whether the
deceased received his fatal
wound or wounds in his own house
or in the house of the accused.
The police witness when recalled
by the Court after the
accused had given evidence in
his defence admitted the vitally
important fact-not previously
mentioned in his evidence-that
there was a trail of blood
leading from the accused's house
to the deceased's house 300
yards away. This is certainly
consistent with the accused's
story that the deceased was
wounded in the accused's house
and then made his way to his own
house where he collapsed. In
regard to this the learned Judge
in the Court below says that it
is " hardly possible for one so
severely wounded to. " have run
unaided-as accused alleges-300
yards to his house "before
collapsing." It is unfortunate
that the learned Judge did not
recall the Doctor on this point
instead of hazarding his own'
conjecture. There are cases in
the Forensic Medicine text
books, and many cases which have
come before Nigerian Courts,
where persons wounded as
severely as was the deceased in
this case have travelled longer
distances than 300 yards before
collapsing, so that it is
certainly at least very doubtful
whether the learned Judge's
conjecture is correct. One of
the Crown witnesses did say that
after being wounded the deceased
" ran to the backyard" so
even according to the Crown case
he retained his power of
locomotion.
Again the
learned Judge enters the realm
of conjecture when he says that"
the small traces pf blood in
accused's house and on " the
road are not consistent with
their being shed by one so
"severely wounded.'" There is no
evidence as to how the deceased
was clad. It might be that the
cloth or clothes he wore
sufficed to absorb the blood and
so prevent much blood reaching
the ground until he collapsed
and lay on the ground possibly
in agony. Where he 'did that,
one would expect to find large
quantities of blood and such
quantities were found at the
back of the deceased's house
where admittedly he did collapse
as a' result of his wounds. We
do not consider that the
evidence offers any adequate
explanation of the 300 yards
long trail of blood other than
the explanation given by the
accused's story.
It is very
significant that there is no
evidence whatever of any trail
of blood leading from the spot"
where according to the Crown
the deceased was wounded to
the spot where he collapsed.
The woman
Adia Ekpe was called by the
accused. She was a most
important witness but her
evidence occupies only about a
dozen lines of the record. She
was pushed down by one of the
accused's assailants as she
entered the accused's ·house in
answer to the accused's
shouting. It is unfortunate that
she was not more closely
examined as to her opportunities
for seeing what was happening
before and after she had been
pushed down. She was not asked
even' how long she was down. The
sketchy evidence of this
inadequately examined witness
was not in our view in all the
circumstances sufficient to
justify the learned Judge in
rejecting the accused's story as
he did, particularly as the
Crown witness Johnson Akpan Udo
Iko admitted that there was a
fight in the accused's house
that day; that the fight
originated from a hostile visit
to the accused's house by. the
deceased and his brothers and
that it ended by the hostile
intruders including the deceased
being driven off by the accused
with a matchet.
In giving the
weight he did to inconsistency
between the evidence of
the woman Adia Ekpo and that of
the accused the learned Judge
did not in our opinion make due
allowance for the Thompson
frightened state in which the
woman must have been. Attacked
by the violent and angry
(the deceased's brother) and
knocked. down, she most probably
would get up and run away as
quickly as she could, which
according to the accused is just
what she did. , No wonder if her
recollection of exactly what
happened is and inaccurate
In all the
circumstances to which we have
referred we consider that
the Court below was wrong in
holding that it was proved
beyond any reasonable doubt that
the version of the prosecution
rather than the version of the
accused was true. That being so,
and the version of the accused
being compatible with the
justification of his acts by
reason of the provisions of the
second paragraph of section 286
of the Criminal Code, he should
have been acquitted.
For these
reasons we quashed the
conviction and sentence and
directed a judgment and verdict
of acquittal to be entered.