Rex v Shabani (Criminal Appeal No. 76 of 1940) [1940] EACA 17 (1 January 1940)

# COURT OF APPEAL FOR EASTERN AFRICA

## Before WHITLEY, C. J. (Uganda), WEBB, C. J. Tanganyika) and CLUER, J. (Tanganyika)

### REX, Respondent (Original Prosecutor)

# SHABANI BIN DONALDI, Appellant (Original Accused) Criminal Appeal No. 76 of 1940

(Appeal from the decision of H. M. High Court of Tanganyika)

Criminal Procedure—Evidence—Report to Police—Indian Evidence Act. section 157.

Held (16-7-40).—That it is desirable in almost every case in which an immediate report has been made to the police by someone who is subsequently called as a witness that evidence of the details of such report (save such portions of it as may be inadmissible as being hearsay or the like) should always be given at the trial.

Appellant absent, unrepresented.

#### Smith for the Crown.

JUDGMENT (delivered by WEBB, C. J.).—On the night of the 18th February, 1940, the house of Ismail Kunwarji was broken into and money and other articles belonging to him or members of his household were stolen. On the next day the appellant was arrested at Msassani. He was then wearing a felt hat and had with him a basket containing, amongst other things, four bottles of perfume and a lottery ticket. The hat, two of the bottles of perfume and the lottery ticket were positively identified as forming part of the stolen property. In his notice of appeal the appellant relies upon two matters: that the lottery ticket was not found in his possession, and that he could prove that on the night of the burglary he was not in Dar es Salaam but in Soga. As to these points there was evidence, which the learned trial Judge believed, that the lottery ticket was found in the appellant's basket, and at the trial the appellant stated that he had no witnesses to call. In our opinion there was ample evidence to support the conviction, and, having regard to the appellant's record, the sentence is a proper one. The appeal is dismissed.

We desire to add that in cases like this, and indeed in almost every case in which an immediate report has been made to the police by someone who is subsequently called as a witness evidence of the details of such report (save such portions of it as may be inadmissible as being hearsay or the like) should always be given at the trial. Such evidence frequently proves most valuable, sometimes as corroboration of the evidence of the witness under section 157 of the Evidence Act, and sometimes as showing that what he now swears is an afterthought, or that he is now purporting to identify a person whom he really did not recognize at the time, or an article which is not really his at all.