KWAME ATTA AND ANOTHER v. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

JUDGMENT OF BLAY J.S.C.

Blay J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellants were convicted by the district magistrate at Kumasi on a charge of stealing a quantity of undried cocoa beans, valued at £G27, the property of one [p.461] Oppon Yaw. They were each sentenced to one day's imprisonment and a fine of £G10 or two months imprisonment with hard labour and in addition to enter into a bond of £G50 in their own recognisance to keep the peace for six months, and in default three months imprisonment with hard labour.

They both appealed against the conviction and sentence to the High Court and the learned judge of the High Court dismissed both appeals summarily. It is against this dismissal by the High Court that the appellants have appealed to this court. The appellants filed identical grounds of appeal, the gist of which amounted to a complaint that the learned magistrate had failed to consider adequately the defence put up at the trial. The case against the appellants was that they were found in the morning on the cocoa farm of Oppon Yaw by one Kojo Krah busily removing or collecting undried cocoa beans from a cocoa drying mat into baskets. Kojo Krah challenged the appellants who threatened him with a knife, and he Kojo ran away and met one Kwasi Gari and one Mame Nyamikye with whom he had originally set out for the farm but who had somewhat lagged behind. He reported to Kwasi Gari and Mame Nyamikye what he had seen on the farm. The three of them then returned to the farm and discovered that all the cocoa beans had been carried away and that the appellants were nowhere to be found. They then followed a path on which some cocoa beans had been dropped which led to a place where they found the appellants drying cocoa beans. It appears that when they saw the appellants drying the beans no questions were asked before a report was made to the police against them. Under cross-examination Krah admitted that he knew the first appellant owned a cocoa farm which had a boundary with the farm of Oppon Yaw. The evidence of Kojo Krah was the only evidence direct or circumstantial which the prosecution adduced against the appellants, except that of the policeman who said that when he visited the farm he found some cocoa beans on the path which led to the place where the appellants were drying cocoa. The policeman also said that when he took up the investigation of the case he obtained statements from the appellants which were tendered in evidence as part of