The following reasons for judgment were jointly delivered :-
KINGDON, C.J., NIGERIA, PETRIDES, c.J., GOLD COAST, AND BUTLER-LLOYD, J.
When we allowed this appeal we announced we should give our reasons for so doing.
Mr. Pollard, Crown Counsel, stated he could not support the conviction because :-
(a) although some four witnesses, besides those called at the trial, had given evidence at the preliminary inquiry, the trial Judge acceded to the request of the prosecution not to call these four witnesses but to offer them to the accused should he wish to have their evidence.
(b) although appellant was charged on three counts with being in possession at his house at Otu-Jeremi on the 8th November, 1936, with four pieces of counterfeit silver coin, knowing them to be counterfeit with intent to utter them, and of certain apparatus adapted for coining knowing them to be so adapted, the trial Judge admitted evidence that on the 7th November a bundle consisting of a pair of bellows and a box containing materials peculiar to counterfeiters (Ex. " A ") had been seized by P.C. David Awosika at a house at Otan, although there was not sufficient evidence to show that appellant was in the house or to connect him with the bundle, and
(c) that there was not sufficient evidence that accused was present at the house raided at. Otu-Jeremi on the 8th' November or that he was in control of the room in which the coining apparatus was found on that date.
Lord Hewart, C.]., in the course of the argument in the case of Rex v. Dora Harris, 1927, 2 K.B.D. 587, observed:-
•• In civil cases the dispute is between the parties and the Judge mereiy keeps the ring, and the parties need not calI hostile witnesses, but in criminal cases the prosecution is bound to calI alI the materia! witnesses before the Court, even though they give inconsistent accounts, in order that the whole of the facts may be before the jury .... "
In the 29th edition of Archbold it is stated at page 494: " Although in strictness it is not necessary for the prosecutor to call every witness whose name is on the back of the indictment, it has been usual to do so, that the defendant may cross':examine them:
R. v. Simmonds, 1 C. & P. 84; R. v. Beezley, 4 C. & P. 220; R. v. Bull, 9 C. & P. 22; R. v. Vincent, 9 C. & P. 91; R. v. Barley, 2 Cox 191." At page 495 of the same authority a number of cases are referred to in which it was held that the prosecution was not bound to call all witnesses, but they ought to be
