REGINA v. ADAMU
1960
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- KORSAH
- C.J.,VAN LARE
- J.A.
- GRANVILLE SHARP
- J.A
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Evidence Law
1960
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The appellant's conviction for attempted abortion was overturned due to significant procedural irregularities and misdirection by the trial judge. The evidence raised sufficient doubt regarding the appellant's intent, and there were conflicts in prosecution witnesses' testimonies. The trial judge failed to comment on the evidence adequately and did not properly instruct the assessors on the burden of proof. Concerns were also raised about the reliability of the appellant's alleged confession. Consequently, the conviction and sentence were quashed, and the appellant was acquitted and discharged.
Van Lare, J.A. delivered the judgment of the court: This is another case in which we have, with regret, to review and comment upon the summing-up and judgment of a judge of Assize sitting with assessors.
The appellant was charged with attempted abortion, and on this charge he was convicted before Scott J., and sentenced to three years I.H.L. It was said that he had intentionally and unlawfully administered a certain liquid to a woman one Cecilia Yaa Adomah, with intent to commit the said offence. This woman was the first witness for the Crown. She said, inter alia, that she was called by the appellant to a room where Kwabena Owusu was also present. She told the appellant (who knew that she was pregnant) that she was having pains in her stomach. The appellant told her that he would give her medicine to stop the pains. He then gave her some medicine, which he said was for her stomach pains. She took the medicine. Later, she was seized with vomiting, and was removed to hospital. She did not abort, and was still pregnant when giving her evidence. In cross-examination by the appellant she said that in Owusu's room he had told her that he had medicine for stomach trouble, and that he told her to drink the medicine and her pains would cease. She was not, on any supposition that she was hostile, cross-examined by counsel for the prosecution, but in answer to an assessor she repeated that the appellant had told her the medicine was for stomach pains.
[p.93]
The whole of this evidence not only raised a doubt as to any guilty intent of the part of the appellant, but it strongly supported his own evidence that it was not true that he had given the complainant medicine in order to cause abortion, or for any reason other than to relieve her stomach pains. P.W.1 was in fact sent to the hospital by her father when she was found to be vomiting. She told her father something, and it must not be presumed against the appellant that she told her father any more than she told the court at the trial. With this evidence of the woman the evidence of other prosecution witnesses was in conflict.
The prosecution tendered—and it was admitted in evidence—a voluntary statement made to the police by the appellant after caution, in which he is alleged to have said, inter alia, that P.W.1 had asked him to give her medicine to cause abortion, and that he had then mixed camphor with a small quantity of Schnapps in an Independence Cup and put it on the table. He is said to have added, "