COMMISSIONER OF POLICE v. BLANKSON AND OTHERS
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- SMITH J
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
1960
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves an appeal against convictions which were based on statements made to the police. The defense objected to the admissibility of these statements citing improper obtaining. The magistrate's failure to allow cross-examination of the police officers on the circumstances the statements were obtained and to call relevant witnesses at the time of the objection led to the appellate court allowing the appeal and quashing the convictions and sentences.
JUDGMENT OF SMITH J.
(His lordship referred to the facts, and continued):
The learned magistrate was wrong in the way he dealt with the matter. I refer to the cases of R.v. Murray ([1951] 1 K.B. 391) and R.v. Francis and Another (43 Cr. App. R. 174).
In the former case Lord Goddard, C.J. said:
“The Recorder was wrong in the course which he took. It was quite right for him to hear evidence in the absence of the jury and to decide on the admissibility of the confession; and, since he could find nothing in the evidence to cause him to think that the confession had been improperly obtained, to admit it. But its weight and value were matters for the jury, and in considering such matters they were entitled to take into account the opinion which they had formed on the way in which it had been obtained. Mr. Hooper was perfectly entitled to cross-examine the police again in the presence of the jury as to the circumstances in which the confession was obtained, and to try again to show that it had been obtained by means of a promise or favour. If he could have persuaded the jury of that, he was entitled to say to them: ‘You ought to disregard the confession, because its weight is a matter for you’.”
In the Magistrate’s Court, of course, the only procedure required would be to hear evidence at the time of the objection, and on that to decide on the admissibility of the confession.
In face of an objection of the kind that was made the admissibility of the statements in question depended on a finding of fact by the magistrate whether or not there were any grounds for counsel’s objection. Defending counsel should have been invited, when the police officer was in the box, to cross-examine that witness there and then, and to call any evidence at his disposal, including (if he so desired) the accused persons on this particular point. The prosecution likewise at that juncture would have called their witness who was present at the taking of the statement. It would only be in the light of evidence given that the trial magistrate could decide at that stage whether the statements were made voluntarily, and were therefore admissible. And in the circumstances of this case it would have been proper for the learned magistrate to rule that a prima facie case had been made out, and to put the prisoners on their defence, only if he had recorded first a finding on the facts (after taking evidence in the way I have outlined) whether or not the statements were properly obtained, a