STATE v. GYIMAH

JUDGMENT OF LASSEY J.

The accused is charged with the rape of a female named Mary Yeboah aged about nineteen years on the 2nd January, 1963, at a village called Aboabo No. 4. To this charge he has pleaded not guilty. The facts proved by the prosecution are as follows. The accused is a school teacher resident at Aboabo No. 4. The complainant Mary Yeboah is a school girl staying with her parents in the same village as the accused. In the morning of the 2nd January, 1963, Mary was sent by her mother to go and give a pair of sandals to a shoemaker in town for it to be repaired. On her way to the shoemaker's place near a coconut tree the accused, who was standing in front of his house, called her into his room, there overpowered her, placed her on her back on the bare cement floor and forcibly had sexual connection with her against her will. Mary cried or shouted. Her mother accompanied by her younger sister in response to her shouts came into the room in time to see the accused actually on top of Mary and having connection with her while she cried. They were later joined by one Yaw Krah and one Yaw Barimah the latter of whom succeeded in lifting the accused up from on top of Mary. He took the accused to his house. Mary accompanied by her mother and younger sister also went home. On the following day, a report was made by Mary's father to the police at Dormaa-Ahenkro.

The defence of the accused is that the connection took place with the full and free consent of Mary, the prosecutrix; that Mary has been his girl friend, and that he had had connection with her several times before, and that the story of rape was concocted by Mary and her parents after he had declined to comply with their demand to pay the sum of £G20 as compensation in order to refrain from reporting the matter to the police.

There is no dispute that there was penetration. It is admitted on the evidence by both the complainant and the accused. That being the case, the sole issue left to be decided is consent or no consent. On this crucial point it is very important to weigh the whole of the evidence very carefully and balance the case presented by the prosecution and her witnesses against that of the accused. In assessing the weight of the evidence much depends on the credibility of the witnesses who testified on the issue.

To prove the force used by the accused the prosecution relied largely on the girl's allegation of shouting or crying. Her mother and younger sister both gave evidence and