STATE vs. OWUSU AND ANOTHER [1967]DLHC1546

Date	1967-03-07
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1967]DLHC1546

BAIDOO J.

A. A. FORSTER ASSISTANT STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE STATE.

BERKOE FOR THE ACCUSED.

[1967]DLHC1546
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >STATE <o:p></o:p>vs. <o:p></o:p>OWUSU AND ANOTHER <o:p></o:p>[HIGH COURT, SUNYANI]<o:p></o:p>[1967] GLR 114<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">

DATE:
7 MARCH 1967<o:p></o:p>

</div>COUNSEL:&nbsp;&nbsp; <o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

A. A. FORSTER, ASSISTANT STATE ATTORNEY, FOR THE
STATE.<o:p></o:p>

</div>CORAM:
<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

BAIDOO J.<o:p></o:p>

</div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>JUDGMENT OF BAIDOO J.<o:p></o:p>This is a
summary trial involving the two above-named accused persons who have been
charged with stealing cash the sum of ¢ 5,208.00 the property of the Ghana
Farmers Co-operative ¢5,208-00, the Property Council at Kukuom, in or about
December 1965, contrary to section 124 of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29). The
first accused Joseph Kwame Owusu was the secretary receiver, while the second
accused, William Anto, was the treasurer of the said Ghana Farmers Co-operative
Council in charge of the Kukuom district. The prosecution rested its case almost,
entirely on a number of voluntary statements given by the accused persons to
the police. The first prosecution witness, General Police Constable, Peter
Ahenkora, who conducted the investigation, tendered various statements in
evidence and not a single one was objected to by counsel for the accused when
the statements were being tendered one after the other. From the evidence of
the-first prosecution witness, I was satisfied that each of the accused wrote
down in his own hand the various statements given by him to the police
voluntarily and without any form of inducement whatsoever and as each of the
statements was tendered without any objection by learned counsel for the two
accused persons I had no difficulty whatsoever in finding as a fact that each statement
was made voluntarily and therefore was admissible. The number of statements
made by the first accused alone and tendered in evidence was four, viz.
exhibits A, C, D, and G, each given on a different date. As against the second
accused, the prosecution tendered four statements given by him on different
dates and they were exhibits B, E, F and H.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The case
against each accused must be considered separately, especially as each accused
failed or refused to give evidence at all when called upon at the close of the
case for the prosecution, and the prosecution is therefore relying on the
various statements given by the accused to the police. Since the first accused
did not go into the witness-box to repeat those statements he gave in exhibits
A, C, D and G, those statements bind the first accused only and cannot be
evidence against his co-accused: see R. v. Ajani (1936) 3 W.A.C.A. 3. The same
consideration applies to the statements in exhibits B, E, F and H made by the
second accused which bind only the second accused.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>To deal
first with the case as against the first accused, the first prosecution witness
gave evidence that (1) as a result of a complaint lodged to the police against
the first accused by George King, the district cocoa marketing officer, and
Wilson Yeboah, the senior internal auditor in charge of the Kukuom district, he
proceeded to Kumasi with the said two officers to trace and arrest the first
accused who had gone there; (2) it was near the gate of the Kumasi Zongo Police
Station that the first accused was seen and arrested; (3) he, the first
prosecution witness, was told that the first accused had also lodged a
complaint against King and Wilson Yeboah who were therefore made to give
written statements to the police at Kumasi Zongo after which he was permitted
to take the first accused away to Goaso; and (4) exhibit A was the statement
the first accused wrote in his own hand to the police at Kumasi Zongo on 30 May
1966 while exhibits C, D and, G were statements the first accused gave to the
police voluntarily at Goaso on 5 June 1966, 6 June 1966 and 1 February 1967
respectively.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>In each
of those statements the first accused admitted taking from his safe some time
in December 1965, the sum of £G2,170 representing the value of 465 bags of cocoa
and sharing the amount together with three other persons viz. George King,
Wilson Yeboah and the second accused. According to the first accused he was
persuaded by George King and Wilson Yeboah to bring the money out from the safe
to be shared out because they had checked up his books and stocks of cocoa and
realised a surplus of 465 bags of cocoa Which King and Yeboah insisted was
profit, he, the first accused, had made in the course of the cocoa purchases
from the farmers. According to the first accused, King and Yeboah threatened to
report the second accused and himself (the first accused) to the farmers for
stealing their cocoa and thereby realizing that enormous profit of £G2,170 if
they (i.e. the first and the second accused) refused to bring out the money to
be shared among the four of them; so both the second accused and himself
brought the money out from the safe and the same was shared out. King, Yeboah
and the second accused received £G500 each, while he (the first accused)
himself received £G670 as his share. The first accused admitted that there was
really never any surplus of 465 bags of cocoa as King and Yeboah made him
believe because some two to three months after sharing the amount he remembered
that he had forgotten to enter up in the Kukuom account books 214 bags of cocoa
that he had bought at his sub-station at Tweneto village. When he entered the
214 bags of cocoa in the Kukuom main cocoa stock book and made a thorough check
of his account books and stocks he found that there was</main>