R. v. MOSHIE

(After stating the facts his lordship proceeded:-)

In our view, the evidence given at the trial of the appellant raised the question whether or not, when he committed the act which he admits he committed, he was under an insane delusion as defined in section 52, sub-section 2 of the Criminal Code, so as, in the opinion of the Court, to render him an unfit subject for punishment.

The story consistently told by the appellant does not fit into the known facts; for example, apart from his landlord, and some of the people who arrived on the scene in consequence of the alarm, the people whom the appellant attacked were only women and children, while according to the appellant the people were all men, grown-ups; he never saw a child anywhere near. The story is such that the only impression it gives is that at the moment when he did the act he was living in a world entirely his own and quite different from that in which all other people in the village, who witnessed the scene, were living.

[p.345]

In the notes of the learned Judge's summing-up to the assessors appears the following passage:

"Assessors told if they did not believe that accused had acted in self-defence, but that he was deprived of his power of self-control, and that he intended to cause harm to landlord and other persons in group, and not to deceased boy Kwadwo Anthony, entitled to find accused not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter."

This direction would have been in order, if the story told by the appellant could be set against a background of reality. But the evidence shows clearly that the "facts" in the story of the appellant were facts which existed only in his own mind, false beliefs held by him which could not be shaken by the facts as they were.

Another passage in the notes of the summing-up is the following:-

"Assessors told no need for prosecution to prove motive - No reasons adduced for actions of accused but if evidence of prosecution believed particularly eye-witness P.W.4 - and that accused was not held in an attempt to take him to lorry for the purpose described by accused, opinion should be stated as guilty of Murder."

And in his judgment the learned Judge said: -

"After I had summed up, the assessors unanimously stated that in their opinion the accused was guilty of murder. With this opinion I am in entire agreement as I accept the evidence of the prosecution and do not believe that the accused was threatened and assaulted as he alleged before he slashed Kwadw