Rex v Bulegeya (Criminal Appeal 12/1935.) [1935] EACA 74 (1 January 1935)

## COURT OF APPEAL FOR EASTERN AFRICA.

# Before SIR JOSEPH SHERIDAN, P., ABRAHAMS, C. J. (Tanganyika) and GAMBLE, Ag. J. (Kenya).

### REX, Respondent (Original Prosecutor)

# MIDAGWE BIN BULEGEYA, Appellant (Original Accused). Criminal Appeal 12/1935.

Drunkenness in itself no excuse in law-Statement of accused to be put in as evidence.

Appellant was convicted by the High Court of Tanganyika, of murder. In his Memo of Appeal he submitted that he was drunk and did not kill the deceased with whose murder he had been charged.

#### $Held$ (16-2-35).—That the intoxication of the appellant was not such as to afford an excuse in law.

That the statement of accused at the preliminary inquiry should have been put in as evidence.

Mathew for Crown.

Appellant absent unrepresented.

JUDGMENT.—The evidence in this case supports the conviction and the intoxication of the appellant was not such as to afford an excuse in law for his act. We observe that the statutory statement of the appellant before the Committing Magistrate was not put in evidence and as to this we would say that it should have been. As was pointed out by LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN, C. J., in Regina v. Gardner (1899, 1 Q. B. D. p. 150 at 155) on a consideration of a precisely similar provision of English law the statement should have been put in whether it spoke for or against the appellant, treating it not as evidence but as a statement made by him.

The appeal is dismissed.