JUDGMENT OF OSEI-HWERE J.
The appellants were arraigned before the Circuit Court Cape Coast, on varying charges of defrauding by false pretences under section 131 of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29), and abetment of defrauding by false pretences. The particulars of the offence against the first appellant (Kojo Yaro), inter alia, were that he, with intent to defraud, induced Chief Alhaji Walla the first prosecution witness to part with the sum of ¢7,000 by a false representation that four and a half pieces of brass which he was giving to him as security for the money were genuine gold, which representation he knew to be false. The second appellant is alleged to have abetted the first appellant in the commission of the offence charged. The appellants pleaded not guilty on their arraignment and the prosecution's case against them, in a nutshell, was that the first appellant, in the company of the second appellant, approached the first prosecution witness with four and a half pieces of metal and with a representation that they were gold. Upon that representation he is alleged to have obtained to a loan of ¢7,000 which he secured by a deposit of the pieces of metal with the first prosecution witness. The second appellant was alleged to have confirmed that those pieces of metal were gold. The prosecution say that before the first prosecution witness handed the money to the first appellant he called in the second and third prosecution witnesses to witness the transaction. The first appellant failed to pay back to the first prosecution [p.13] witness the ¢7,000 at the stipulated time and, what is more, he never showed his face until the first prosecution witness discovered him at Cape Coast on the day of his arrest. The four and a half pieces of metal turned out to be nothing but brass with a very little coating of sold which has no value. The appellants denied the charges. The first appellant said that it was rather the first prosecution witness who was owing him ¢200 and that on the day of his arrest he had gone to the first prosecution witness's house to look him up but that it ended in a quarrel with the first prosecution witness's wife. The first prosecution witness came to arrest him and preferred this charge against him. The second appellant said that he had never set eyes on the first prosecution witness until the day of his arrest. The trial judge found both appellant guilty and sentenced the first appellant to a fine of ¢7,000 or four years’ imprisonm
