COLLINS ALIAS DERBY vs. THE REPUBLIC [1988]DLCA731

Date	1988-07-14
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1988]DLCA731

FRANCOIS J.S.C

OSEI-HWERE JA

AMPIAH J.A.

OPOKU ADJEI FOR THE APPELLANT.

SAM BADDOO CHIEF STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE REPUBLIC.

[1988]DLCA731
																																						<div class="restriction-wrapper">
														<div class="container-lg">
															<div class="row">
																<div class="col-md-12 restricted-content">
																	<div class="restricted-content-img-wrapper">
																		<div class="lock-icon bounce-7">
																			<img class=""
																				src="https://www.dennislawgh.com/dl-assets/dl-images/lock-content.png"
																				alt="Subscription based content">
																		</div>
																	</div>
																	 
																		<a href="https://www.dennislawgh.com/login"
																		class="btn btn-primary btn-lg"
																		style="font-family: 'open sans'; text-transform: capitalize; border-radius: 8px"> 
																		Login to Read Full Case </a>
																	 
																	
																</div>
															</div>
														</div>
													</div>
													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >COLLINS ALIAS DERBY<o:p></o:p>&nbsp;vs. <o:p></o:p>THE REPUBLIC <o:p></o:p>[COURT OF APPEAL, ACCRA]<o:p></o:p>[1987-88] 2 GLR 521<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
14 JULY 1988<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">

OPOKU ADJEI FOR THE APPELLANT. <o:p></o:p>

SAM BADDOO, CHIEF STATE ATTORNEY, FOR THE
REPUBLIC.<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">

FRANCOIS J.S.C., OSEI-HWERE AND AMPIAH
JJ.A.<o:p></o:p>

</div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>JUDGMENT OF FRANCOIS J.S.C.<o:p></o:p>Francois
J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. In the early hours of the morning
of 28 June 1984 a young woman left her house to take breakfast to her father in
his farm. She got there only to discover her father’s battered body in a stream
under a bridge that divided his two farms. In attempting to drag her father out
of the water, she discovered he had sustained extensive injuries. Blood was
oozing from his mouth and the side of his neck. His teeth had been knocked out.
Her father was fully clothed with his faming boots on. Nearby was a cutlass,
and by it a spear, a truncheon, a sack of corn and a strange pair of brown
sandals. She recognised the sack and cutlass as belonging to her father, but
not the other items.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
autopsy on the deceased disclosed a fracture of the skull which a blow to the
head could have caused. Wounds on the forehead and the back of the head were
lacerations caused by a metal implement. The lacerations to both back and front
of the head ruled out accident and forcibly suggested the infliction of the
wounds by another person. The doctor stated at the trial: “But it is unlikely
that the deceased could have hit both his forehead and back of his head against
such an instrument at the same time.”<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>There was
no eyewitness to the killing, which appeared a senseless one without motive.
The mystery would have remained complete but for circumstances that emerged
later which emerged the appellant in a dragnet. First, a fishmonger, Doris
Fynn, the third prosecution witness, who knew the appellant intimately, living
close by his house, saw him in the morning of the day of the killing. He had
come to her kitchen to light his cigarette. She saw blood on his chest. It
appeared he was scantily clad with a female cover cloth around his shoulders
which exposed his chest. Doris Fynn, in common with the shocked community, had
visited the spot where the deceased had been killed. Of the items lying around
she particularly identified the pair of sandals as belonging to the appellant.
She had seen him often wearing that pair when he came to her kitchen to cook
his meal and light his cigarettes. She seemed positive and quite unshaken about
her identification of the sandals though she had made no previous statement
about it. Another important matter emerged from the evidence of this witness.
She revealed that she saw the appellant’s mother busily washing the appellant’s
clothes that morning.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>Another
prosecution witness who had known the appellant from childhood and was staying
close by his house had seen him in the early hours of the fateful morning of 28
June around 4.30 a.m emerging “from the direction of the bush”, to knock at his
mother’s door. Later in the morning as the witness was going to work he saw the
appellant covered with his mother’s cloth which was unusual as he always saw
him in clothes. He did not see him again till a year later.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>Apart
from being seen in the early hours of the morning emerging from the bush-path
leading to the farm where the deceased was found, and the linkage provided by
the sandals, there was another piece of the jig-saw, namely a whitish velvet
material which was used to tie up the sack of corn in the farm. This cloth
matched material used in sewing a pillowcase in the appellant’s room.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
police officer who conducted the investigations, spoke of signs of a struggle
and blood stains at three spots around the area where the deceased was
discovered. He found in the appellant’s room a pair of white torn trousers
which was blood-stained. Similarly soiled with blood was a pillow on the
appellant’s bed and a piece of cloth in the room. The officer retrieved from
the room a pillowcase with a piece torn out. The material used to tie up the
sack of corn in the deceased’s farm seemed to match this pillowcase, the
suggestion being that they were one and the same fabric.<o:p></o:p>