HOME           6  WEST AFRICA COURT OF APPEAL

                                                                      Lagos, 27th April, 1940.        

                                               COR. KINGDON, PETRIDES AND GRAHAM PAUL, C .J J.

                                                                                   REX                                                Respondent.

                                    v.

                                                                          JAMES ANUKU                                       Appellants.

Appeal Court 27th April, 1940

Murder-Sufficiency of evidence in support of Plea of insanity-The trial judge held that  prisoner was not a mentally normal person but the evidence was not sufficiently explicit to establish a Court. defence of insanity.

Held: Following R. v. True, 16 Criminal Appeal Report, p.167 that the Judge was entitled to say that the facts taken as a whole satisfied him that at the time of the act the prisoner was not insane. Appeal dismissed.

      The facts of the case are sufficiently set out in the judgment.

      Ian F. Cameron for Appellant.

      C. N. S. Pollard for Crown.

  The following joint judgment was delivered ;-

            KINGDON, C.J., NIGERIA, PETRIDES, CJ GOLD COAST AND GRAHAM PAUL, C.J., SIERRA LEONE.

       The grounds of appeal relied upon at the hearing of this appeal were :--

         1. The learned Trial Judge misdirected himself as to the sufficiency of the evidence before the Court in support of the plea of insanity, and

          2. That the murder ",as committed when accused was suffering from insanity.

          In his summing up the Judge reviewed all the evidence relied on by Counsel in the Court below as to insanity. He then examined section 28 of the Criminal Code and came to the conclusion that the evidence fell far short of the requirements of that section .He went on the say "I believe on the evidence and after observing prisoner in Court that he is not a mentally normal person, but the evidence as to his condition at the time is not nearly sufficiently explicit to establish the defence of insanity

         We have been asked to hold that, on the evidence given at the trial, the Judge ought to have found the appellant guilty but insane.

          In the case of Ronald True, 16 C.A .R. at page 167, the present Lord Chief Justice of England, delivering the judgment of the court of Criminal Appeal, said :-

          On behalf of the appellant, it is said, first, that the verdict which the jury gave was against the weight of the evidence; and in particular under that head of objection it is said that, as certain medical witnesses were called on the part of the defence to say that the appellant was not only insane after the commission of the act but was certifiably insane when he was said to have committed it, and as no medical evidence was called contradict that view, therefore the jury were bound to accept it.

In the opinion of the Court that contention is not sound. The jury were entitled to say that the facts of the case, taken as a whole, apart from any question whether the prosecution called medical evidence upon the special point, satisfied them that at the date of the committing of the ac: the prisoner was not insane."

We are satisfied that there was nothing unsatisfactory in the summing up. The Judge was entitled to say that the facts of the case, taken as a whole, satisfied him that at the date of committing the act the prisoner was not insane. We are not prepared t reverse his finding of fact.

For these reasons the appeal is dismissed