SERECHI AND ANOTHER v. THE STATE

JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.

Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellants were convicted of the offence of murder by the High Court, Kumasi, upon the verdict of a jury. The incident happened on the 15th December, 1962, in Obuasi town between the hours of 12.15 and 12.30 p.m., and involved some trucks being carried by a mines locomotive engine. The trucks in question are firewood trucks and were described as flat having iron poles. The train started from the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation mines office, Obuasi, travelling to a village called "Mile 14" to load firewood; the locomotive was driven by the first witness for the prosecution, the appellants who were employees of the mines and other persons travelled on it.

The case for the prosecution is that the appellants were on duty at the time and that their said duty was to put the trucks back on the rail if there happened to be derailment. Employees of the mines were permitted to travel on the trucks, but it was prohibited to non-employees that they should; that some persons jumped on the trucks as the train started to move on; the appellants who were on the last truck moved from truck to truck towards the engine driving down some of the people who had come on the trucks; the deceased also jumped on one of the trucks at a certain point when the engine was moving slowly, with one hand he held one of the iron poles as he sat and with the other hand he held a piece of sugarcane which he ate as the truck moved on; the appellants came to the truck on which the deceased sat; the second witness for the prosecution described what happened thereafter as follows:

"The accused were beating and pushing the people away from the trucks. When they reached the truck where the deceased sat, the second accused began to beat him with his stick. The first accused did the same with his hand. They were both engaged in beating him in this way until the truck reached the public mortuary. Both accused then pushed him. The deceased then fell unto the rail and three trucks got derailed. All this time the train [p.533] was in motion. When the man fell onto the rail, the truck ran over him. The train then stopped and police came on the scene. The man was badly injured and died on the spot. At the time the accused pushed the deceased onto the rail, the train was going very fast."

Five other eye-witnesses who watched the incident, four of them passengers on other trucks and one a police constable who was in the s