3PLR – SIMEON FURA ADEPEHIN V THE QUEEN

POLICY, PRACTICE AND PUBLISHING, LAW REPORTS  3PLR

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SIMEON FURA ADEPEHIN

V

THE QUEEN

FEDERAL SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

29TH JANUARY. 1959.

F.S.C. 263/1958

BEFORE THEIR LORDSHIPS

SIR ADETOKUNBO ADEMOLA, F.C.J. (Presided)

MYLES JOHN ABBOTT, F.J. (Read the Judgment of the Court)

LOUIS NWACHUKWU MBANEFO, F.J.

REPRESENTATION

Applicant absent, not represented.

1. E. A. ADEMOLA, C. C. – for the Respondent.

MAIN ISSUES

CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE:- Murder – Proof of – Retraction of entire confessional statement – Duty of trial Judge thereto

CHILDREN AND WOMEN LAW:- Women and Security/Human Rights/Justice Administration – Murder – Horrific killing of defenseless woman [head cut off and hidden] –  Evidence of another woman who was eye-witness to the murder – Courage of a woman to act as witness against a family member involved in the commission of capital crime against another woman – Attitude of court thereto

ETHICS – PROSECUTION/JUDGE: Failure of prosecution to appeal the decision of trial court – Attitude of appellate court thereto

MAIN JUDGMENT

ABBOTT, F.J. (Delivering the Judgment of the Court):

This matter came before us on the 23rd January, 1959, in the form of an application for leave to appeal by Simeon Fura Adepehin against his conviction by the High Court of the Western Region sitting at Akure on a charge that on the 16th October, 1957, he murdered a woman named Mate Adekungbe, and on that date we refused the application for leave to appeal and now give our reasons for so doing.

The evidence called at the trial was extremely clear and unmistakable, and was fully accepted, so far as the applicant was concerned, by the learned trial Judge. On his arrest the applicant made a statement to the Police in which he began by saying that another man with whom we are not now con­cerned asked him to assist in the killing of the woman, and that he, the applicant, agreed. He went on to say that four days before his arrest he actu­ally took part in the killing and he gave details of exactly what happened at the scene of the crime. Both this statement and the medical evidence show that it was an extremely brutal murder of a defenceless woman, the head being severed from the body and subsequently hidden, according to the applicant’s statement, in the bole of a fallen tree. The applicant also said in his statement that he afterwards went to the 3rd witness for the prosecution, who had seen the murder committed, to beg her not to mention his name. The applicant’s statement was interpreted to him in the presence of the Divi­sional Officer who also signed the statement.

The applicant retracted his statement at his trial, but the learned trial Judge went fully into the details of the taking of the statement and the sub­sequent reading over of it in the presence of the Divisional Officer and came to the conclusion, rightly we think, that the statement was correctly taken and acknowledged by the applicant to be correct. Quite apart from this as we have already mentioned there was the evidence of the 3rd prosecution wit­ness who actually saw the murder committed and positively identified the applicant whom she knows quite well, he being a nephew of her husband. We considered that there was absolutely nothing to be said in the applicant’s favour in this case and for this reason and for the other reasons we have al­ready set out we dismissed his application for leave to appeal.

We would only add that in our view the other man accused with the applicant of the same crime was extremely fortunate in the view which the learned trial Judge took of the evidence against him.

Leave to Appeal Refused.