Crown v Mara (Revision Case No. 59 of 1943) [1943] EACA 67 (1 January 1943)

## CRIMINAL REVISION

## BEFORE SIR JOSEPH SHERIDAN, C. J., AND LUCIE-SMITH, J.

CROWN, Prosecutor ù.

## JUMA s/o MARA (Accused No. 2), Accused

## Revision Case No. 59 of 1943

Receiving stolen property—Sec. 315 (1) P. C.—Accomplice—Corroboration—Nondenial of accomplice's evidence.

Accused absent, unrepresented.

Stacey, Crown Counsel, for the Crown.

ORDER (16-4-43).—If the witness Nagwala is not an accomplice he is in our opinion very little better. We consider him to be a witness with regard to whose evidence there should have been a warning of the danger of convicting on it in the absence of corroboration and on the authority of the Court of Appeal for Eastern African, if he was an accomplice, there should have been corroboration of his evidence in some material particular implicating the accused before convicting. The accused, when called on for his defence, said that he had nothing to say and it was at first argued that this fact of non-denial of Nagwala's evidence was sufficient corroboration, Rex v. Feigenbaum (1919) 14 Cr. App. Rep. 1, being quoted in support. In that case it was held that the non-denial by an accused person of an accomplice's statement may provide the necessary corroboration. But in Rex v. Keeling, 28 Cr. App. Rep. 121, the correctness of the decision in Feigenbaum's case was doubted. In short we do not consider that a conviction can safely stand in the present case. We direct that the accused be acquitted and released.