OFOSU v. THE STATE

The appellant was convicted on the 20th February, 1963, before Bannerman J. sitting with a jury at the Criminal Sessions of the High Court held at Kumasi for the murder of his own uncle.

The case for the prosecution was that the appellant and the deceased travelled to Nkawie in January 1957 and lived together, very happily, at the Agriculture Department bungalow for five years during which period the appellant cooked and rendered other domestic services for the deceased. In January 1962 the deceased's wife, Agnes Kuntoh, joined him at Nkawie. Shortly afterwards one Mary Afua Agyepongmaah, a girl of about thirteen years of age, was brought to the bungalow as a maidservant for the deceased and the appellant started making love with her.

The deceased became aware of the amorous relationship between the appellant and the maidservant. He therefore called the appellant and one other nephew, Edward Apiedu, and warned them of the dangers of flirting with girls of tender age. In spite of the warning, the relationship between the appellant and the maidservant did not change. It became more intimate than before. As a result differences arose between the deceased and the appellant, differences attended by the common habit of the uncle not responding to greetings of the nephew, and the nephew refusing to render domestic services for the uncle and which culminated in the deceased treating the appellant with scornful abuses whenever the former became drunk. Such then was the unhappy state of affairs which existed between the appellant and his uncle up to the day the latter met his death by the murderous hands of the former.

On the 6th October, 1962, the deceased visited his relatives in Kumasi; he returned to Nkawie the same day and was seen drunk and unhappy. The appellant, was not at the bungalow at that time. The deceased then went, to the boy's quarters where the appellant lived, entered the appellant's room by breaking the door with an axe and threw outside his (appellant's) personal effects. Not long afterwards the appellant arrived at the bungalow. He greeted the deceased, but there was no reply. He then went to his quarters and was later seen approaching the deceased with a cutlass.

[p.419]

Edward Apiedu who lived together with the appellant at the boy's quarters and who gave evidence for the prosecution at the trial said,

"My uncle (the deceased) on seeing the accused coming with a cutlass went into his car and was trying to drive away when the accused p