Try asking the following...
Try asking the following...
July 27, 1976
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
JUDGMENT OF TAYLOR J.
The appellant in this case was arraigned before the District Court Grade 1, Accra New Town, on 12 May 1975 charged with stealing contrary to section 124 of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29), on two counts the particulars of which are as follows:
"Count One
PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE
Dzakpo Quarshie Lucien: Teacher: For that you during the month of August 1973, at Kotobabi in the Accra magisterial district and within the jurisdiction of this court did steal one big wall clock value ¢540.00, one big brass school bell value ¢25.00 and one bedspread all to the total value of ¢599.65."
"Count Two
PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE
Dzakpo Quarshie Lucien: Teacher: For that you during the month of August 1973 at Accra New Town in the Accra magisterial district and within the jurisdiction of this court did steal six text books value ¢60.00 the property of one John Winfred Dumoga."
On 5 January 1976, after a trial lasting many months, the learned district magistrate found the charges proved. She therefore found the appellant guilty and convicted him. She sentenced him to two years' imprisonment with hard labour on each count. The sentences were to run concurrently. The appellant originally appealed against the sentences imposed. At the hearing of the appeal he was unrepresented and he experienced tremendous difficulties in arguing his case. Colonel Bernasko, a legal practitioner present in court, seeing his plight offered to appear for him and he subsequently filed on the appellant's behalf four additional grounds of appeal directed against the conviction as follows:
(1) The verdict is unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence.
(2) The judge's appreciation of the law was erroneous and its application to the facts established at the trial was equally unsatisfactory.
(3) The trial magistrate failed to consider and examine fully the defence of the appellant.
(4) There was a substantial miscarriage of justice."
In order to appreciate the relevance of the grounds of appeal filed for the appellant, it is necessary to have regard to the facts led in evidence by the prosecution and which founded the conviction. The facts are that the [p.354] appellant was a school teacher at an Accra New Town elementary school some time in 1973. He resigned from the school and took up employment at Sokpoe Agricultural School in 1974. In the later part of the year he resigned from the school and upon information received, his house at Anyako was
AI Generated Summary
This appeal by Dzakpo Quarshie Lucien, a teacher formerly at an Accra New Town school and later at Sokpoe Agricultural School, challenges convictions and sentences from the Accra New Town District Magistrate Court Grade I arising out of items found in his room after a police search. Count one alleged stealing a wall clock, brass school bell, and bedspread; count two alleged stealing six textbooks said to belong to John Winfred Dumoga. The appellate court held that Lucien’s defense on count two—that Dumoga gave him the books for teaching, corroborated by the complainant—was not considered by the trial magistrate, warranting quashing that conviction. On count one, the court affirmed the conviction only for the clock and bell, finding no evidence on the bedspread. Emphasizing that ownership need not be proved for stealing and decrying the police’s multiple, sequential prosecutions as oppressive, the court reduced the sentence to three months’ imprisonment, ordered to run concurrently with an earlier two-year sentence from Sogakofe, entitling Lucien to discharge on count one.